Ms. Lindsey Rega pursued a unique research opportunity this summer through the South Carolina RET, a program managed from Furman University and funded by an $18 million award from the National Institutes of Health and a $20 million National Science Foundation EPSCoR grant. The RET program enables teachers to engage in a 6-week immersion research experience at an institution in their local area. These experiences (the first for many SC teachers) expose teachers to modern research and allow them to link their research activities to classroom activities designed to increase their students’ knowledge and awareness of science. Working with Dr. Michael Wyatt, a University of South Carolina (USC) professor in the College of Pharmacy, Ms. Rega learned about a recent revolution in biomedical research called CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing. The technique can be used to “knock out” genes in order to study the function of the proteins encoded by those genes. She used bacteria to generate the tools to knockout human DNA repair genes in prostate and ovarian cancer cells. The long-term goal of this research is to better predict which patients will respond to chemotherapy by better understanding how tumor cells repair DNA damage caused by chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Ms. Rega presented her research at the Network RET Poster Session on August 10th at USC. Ms. Rega’s experience came at the perfect time; she will be using much of what she learned as she teaches sophomore Discovery students Research 1 this year along with Mr. Dale Soblo. Congratulations to Ms. Rega for completing this rigorous research experience!
