UCSD Senior Wins First Calit2 Undergraduate Fellowship Prize

Calit² has announced that Megan Bowers is the winner of the institute's first Undergraduate Fellowship Prize. Bowers was one of 22 undergraduates at UCSD picked for the first crop of undergraduate Calit² fellows in Summer 2001. She got the nod from the institute's layer leaders, who cited her meritorious work with advisor Larry Reiter.

Then a molecular biology junior, the 21-year-old Bowers spent the summer of 2001 working on genetic analysis of the Drosophila fly's homologue of a gene-UBE3A-associated with Angelman Syndrome in humans. (The mental-retardation syndrome strikes 1 in 25,000 individuals, usually by age 2, and is characterized by developmental delays, absent or impaired speech, movement or balance disorder, and unusual behaviors.)

The fellowship was part of Calit²'s Digitally Enabled Genomic Medicine layer. "All I knew was that it was a bioinformatics project, and I was surprised when I won the fellowship," recalls Bowers. "Everyone else was doing computational work. But I think in the end they wanted to balance that out with my more traditional biological research skills. Our project started out computational, but then became more biological in focus."

Her research was also the subject of an honors thesis, and she expects to be a co-author on a paper in October outlining the success of the project so far. Says Bowers: "By characterizing how the gene works in Drosophila, we will hopefully find new therapeutic targets for Angelman Syndrome in humans."

Bowers also says the Calit² fellowship may have played a role in helping her gain acceptance into a highly competitive academic program: She has been accepted into New York University's Medical Scientist Training Program-an 8-year, joint M.D./Ph.D. program designed to groom top-notch clinical researchers. Why both degrees? "There aren't too many niches today for people with those dual degrees," says Bowers. "But by the time I have graduated, I think there will be very high demand for those medical researchers with clinical experience. I want both degrees because I sincerely feel that this program will provide me with sufficient training to work on problems concerning human disease."

Bowers even got NYU to let her postpone the start of graduate school for a year. The Sacramento-bred student is off to finish a fifth undergraduate year, in County Cork, Ireland. She'll bring along her Calit² prize: a brand-new PDA.

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UCSD Senior Wins First Calit2 Undergraduate Fellowship Prize