A summer program for students focusing on research opportunities wrapped up its 16th successful year last week.
The Summer Career Opportunities & Research Experience (CORE) Program (previously the Summer Leadership & Research Program (SLRP)) at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College is designed to foster interest in research, academia and graduate programs for BSc, DVM and other summer students while working with scientists and veterinarians in diverse areas.
“Besides offering direct “hands-on” experience for students, the CORE program provides a great way to showcase some of the research that is conducted at OVC, and to connect faculty members with students who are interested in their research,” says Dr. Leo Susta, assistant professor in OVC’s Department of Pathobiology and part of this year’s Summer CORE Program Organizing Committee. “This really fosters a great sense of research community, and also facilitates recruitment of new graduate students for the future.”
A poster
session in the final week of the program provides students the opportunity to
summarize their research and present it to OVC faculty, graduate students and
funding agency representatives who evaluate the scientific and educational
poster projects for clarity, overall design, and the student’s ability to
present the information.
From left to right: Julia Saturno, Claire Segeren, Chesney Baldwin, Mathew MacCormick, Katrina Allison, Akash Jairaj, Elizabeth Silk, Thisuri Eagalle and Celeste Noble.
Awards were presented at a wrap-up luncheon on Friday with first place to Akash Jairaj for “Optomizing DNA Extraction and Quantitation for Low Cellularity Samples in Dogs”. Second place winners were: Katrina Allison for “Gender disparity in innate immune response to viral infection: the role of type I interferon”; Celeste Noble for “Evaluation of ‘Revive’, a probiotic, for treatment of neonatal calf diarrhea”; and Elizabeth Silk for “Developing a Molecular Clonality Assay to Diagnose Equine Lymphoma”. Third place honours went to: Chesney Baldwin for “Targeting mTOR in canine osteosarcoma cell lines”; Thisuri Eagalle, for “Determination of important causes of mortality in captive psittacines submitted to the Ontario Veterinary College”; Mathew MacCormick for “An investigation of whether innate dexterity and visuospatial skill can be used to predict laparoscopic skill”; Julia Saturno for “Temperature as a confounding variable in oncolytic virotherapy for canine melanomas”; and Claire Segeren for “The Efficacy of Case-Based Assignments in a Veterinary Ophthalmology Rotation”.
Summer CORE Program students complete research projects in diverse areas, while participating in field trips, attending scientific conference and professional development workshops, and a Round Table series with invited guests working in a variety of areas.
In addition to delving into the research side of academia, students benefit from the mentorship of advisors in varied fields.
DVM students such as Christina Lyn, OVC class of 2019 and Emily Wong, OVC class of 2018 found the program not only provided research experience, but also additional veterinary medicine learning opportunities as they had the chance to shadow practicing veterinarians. While working on a study related to dairy cattle, Lyn had the opportunity to ride along with her advisor, Dr. Jessica Gordon, Population Medicine, a couple of times a week.
For Keeley Burnside, who is completing a Bachelor of Medical Science at the University of Western Ontario, her summer research studying bovine colostrum in high, average, and low immune responder cattle was an introduction to a year-long internship at OVC, before she completes the final year of her degree program. She gave the Summer CORE program high marks, noting the opportunity to work in a laboratory with Masters level students as a definite high point.
The Summer CORE program is generously sponsored by the New Opportunities Career Path funding provided in the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) Special Grant at OVC. Additional funding for student projects comes from the generosity of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Zoetis, Merial, Bayer and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)