The Summer Student Program began in 1924 when University of Maine President C.C. Little (our founder) brought six undergraduates to Mount Desert Island for a summer of biological field studies. The Summer Student Program officially became a part of the Jackson Memorial Laboratory's operation in 1931.

Students participate in an ongoing research program with the support of an experienced scientific mentor. They develop an independent project, implement their plan, analyze the data, and report the results. At the end of the summer, they present their findings to researchers, other students, and parents.

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Submissions from 2014

The expression of n-Tr20, a CNS-specific tRNA, depends on the presence of the upstream regulatory sequence., Michelle Johnson

Screening and cloning of mouse and human APOBECs., Sarah Judd

Exploring the development of T follicular helper cells and their role in autoimmune disease., Sarah Kate Lane-Reticker

The role of pancretic Irx3 expression in obesity and the gut-brain axis., Yvonne Lei

A model for binding site selectivity of 1ncRNA-chromatin interactions., Ran Liu

Characterizing the effect of novel aging genes on neurodegeneration, healthspan, and reproduction in Caenorhabditis elegans., Theresa Liu

Preparing to breathe: a comparison of lung development in chick and mouse., Vania Lopez

iRhom2 regulates shredding of metalloprotease ADAM17 substrate TNF(alpha): implications in inflammatory bowel disease., Paul Macklis

Interrogating activity of C2CD4A/B/VPS13C stretch enhancer constituent sites., Anubhuti Mathur

Sex differences in Pavlovian conditioned approach behavior in Collaborative Cross and diversity outbred founder strains., Kathryn McNaughton

Simmer: the spplication of semantic similarity measures in search result retrieval., Patrick Osterhaus

Improving Cas9 through targeted engineering., Dylan Plaskon

Effect of Dnm1a seizure mutation on protein and RNA expression of genes implicated in epilepsy., Casey Marie Poore

Investigating Langerhans cells in human skin and tumor-associated macrophages in MISTRG mice to discover novel targets for cancer immunotherapy., Ariq Rahman

Developing computable models of metabolic processes for the gene ontology., Nikolai Renedo

Voluntary running preserves Apoe expression and reverses neurovascular decline in aged mouse neocortex., Hannah J. Richter

Effect of somatic single nucleotide variants and copy number alterations on prediction tumor clonality with cloneHD and whole exome sequencing., Meredith Shea

Smarca2 downregulates Ucp1 expression in adipose tissue., Mary E. Sims

Investigating the role of ADAD1 by protein interaction and localization pattern studies., Jamie Lee Solimano

Design and development of a long-term mouse eye organ culture perfusion system., Gregory Stevens

Computational inference of the epigenetic changes inducd by ER stress in pancreatic beta cell line MIN6., Haley Strassner

Genetic mapping of spontaneous musculoskeletal mutations in mouse models: Shultz new mutant., Annie Sullivan

Effect of rapamycin on insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance in various strains of inbred mice., Austen Te

CRISPR-Cas knockouts of tumor suppressor genes in breast cancer., Jessica Xie

Submissions from 2013

Behavioral aging in diversity outbred mice: disparate phenotypes of inbred and heterogeneous populations, Casey Acklin

Methodology for inferring gene function using phenotype data., Joao A. Ascensao

Inductive influence of dystrophin deficiency on rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) growth in NRG-Dmdmdx-5cv mice: a novel mouse model to evaluate immune therapies., Chantal Barksdale

Development of an optimized ex-vivo organotypic slice culture systems for cancer studies, and a study of the molecular mechanism of Nothch1 in stem cell maintenance and cellular transformation., Efrat Bentolila

The altered expression of CELF4 responsive mRNAs in kindled wild-type mice., Bethany Berry

The role of Kdm5d in regulating meiotic recombination., James Boucher

Genomic DNA sequencing of p53 in normal oviduct, tubal tumor, and high grade serous ovarian cancer., Sophie de Bruijn

Basis of synaptic dysfunction related to Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2D: investigating active zones., Lauren Budd

QTL mapping of modifiers of junctional epidermolysis bullosa using phenotypically disparate strains B6 and 129X1., Nabig Chaudhry

Testing a protective role for angiogenin treatment in embryonic stem cell-derived motor neurons derived from transgenic mice carrying human ALS mutation TDP43 (A315T), Kevin Clare

Mouse modeling of mutational acquisition in human acute myeloid leukemia (AML)., Jennifer Ditano

Identification of clinically relevant read-outs and study of muscle regenerative potential in an improved muscular dystrophy mouse model, the DBA/2J-mdx congenic., Connor Dolan

Genomic analysis of transcription regulation in drosophila., Jacqueline Duhl

Identifying the gene responsible for a new spontaneous mouse model of neuromuscular disease., Jakub Dziedzic

Design, construction and evaluation of a LEGO Skinner box for educational use., Andrew Gallup

Evaluation of semantic similarity measures as search tools in the Gene Ontology and Mammalian Phenotype Ontology., Daniel Galvez

Molecular dissection of the role of VEGFA in development of Schlemm's canal., Sneha Goswami

Comparison of inference reliability of ovarian cancer purity., Jared Graveley

Identification of candidate gene regulators linking obesity to sleep., Jasmine Johnson

Expression of mammalian U2 snRNA genes., Parixit B. Joshi

Investigating pleiotropic and epistatic effects in the BTBR x C57BL/6 mouse model., Bo Kane

Developmental genotyping and phenotyping of a novel mouse mutant, Olivia Katz

Investigating neurovascular changes in aging and alzheimer's disease., Jake Radell

Electrical stimulation as an alternative method to terminal sperm freeze., Robert Rounds

The role of complement proteins in cancer., Ruchi Shah

Transcriptome analysis of spontaneous and induced lung tumors in mice using RNA Seq., Janaya Shelly

The function of Netrin5 in the development of the mouse nervous system., Liam Sigaud

Selective ablation of the NMDA receptor in somatostatin-positive GABAergic neurons: effects on mouse behavior and neuronal connectivity., Alison Smith

Discovering pancreatic islet function in an obese mouse model., Chelse-Amoy Steele

Dissection of tumor heterogeneity by the proteotoxic stress response., Xiaochen Sun

Investigating aspartoacylase activity in mouse podocytes through genomic and proteomic analyses., Yuka Takemon

Finding potential new candidate genes for the negative and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia using mouse phenomics and bioinformatics., Gwenaelle Thomas

Examination of insulin signaling in an Alms1 gene trap mouse model for Alstrom syndrome., Charles Thorpe

Dendritic spine density changes: a correlation with age and behavioral phenotypes., Courtney Vaughn

Identifying differentially expressed genes in sleep deprived mice., Gabriel Vela

Alternative RNA isoform analysis in Adad1tm1Reb mutant testes., He Yang

Two disease models for congenital glycosylation deficiency., Xingjian Zhang

Submissions from 2012

Investigating the genetic connection between autism and epilepsy through the RNA binding protein CELF4., Parirash Abdolhosseini

In vitro removal of the androgen recepto from adult sertoli cells., Jenna Adams

Using bioinformatics to develop genome mapping tools for diabetes., Elizabeth Ann Omoluyi Adesanya

Identification of novel regulators of {beta}h1 and {epsilon}y., Aleena Arakaki

Examining mouse models to determine type 1 diabetes susceptibility candidate genes., Kiana Brown

Discovery of Wisp2 interaction protein., Nahum Buzaglo

Investigation on the effects of a 9bp sequence in Far2 on an increase in mesangial matrix expression., Carlos Diaz

Extraction of ribosome-associated mRNA from motor neurons of the spinal cord and brain., Connor Foster

Identifying PRDM9 binding sites in meiotic recombination hotspots., Gitanjali E. Gnanadesikan

Effects of radiation on the inflammatory response in a mouse model of obesity and diabetes., Hailey Gosnell

Single nucleotide polymorphisms influence outcomes of Lamc2 induced JEB in mice., Fiorella Grandi

Using pleiotropy to model genetic interaction in the B6xC3H F2 intercross and visualization of results., Justin Hendrick

Vascular origins of the Schlemm's canal., Stephen Henrich

The role of XRCC2 in B-cell antibody production to antigen., Maile Hollinger

Identification of a genetic network linking sleep and obesity., Jasmine Johnson

Characterizing gene expression profiles for chronic lymphocytic leukemia samples via RNA-seq., Jean Juang

In vivo functional analyses of DICER cofactor proteins., Lindsey Krening

The role of mammalian HBS1L., Katherine Linder

Behavioral and molecular indicators of autism in a Celf4-deficient mouse model of genetically complex epilepsy., Katie Long

The effect of Dscam mutations on mouse vision., Gabriela Lopez

Understanding the role of Notch1 in cellular transformation and stem cell maintenance., Madison Luck

The effect of Src homology phosphatase 1(SHP-1) on type 1 diabetes development in NOD mice., Noah V. Lupica

Validation of therapeutic compounds A07 and A09 for the purposes of genetic chemotherapy., John McMichael

Elucidating the role of YAP1 in normal and cancer stem cell differentiation and survival., Rachael McMinimy

The role of p53 in AID-dependent cytotoxicity., Maya Merriweather

Characterization of deprenyl and potential lifespan-extending drugs on lifespan and aging in Caenorhabditis elegans., Sophia Ormond

Identifying novel genes that affect HDL cholesterol levels by verifying and testing point mutations of ENU mutagenized HLB 388/HLB 446 mice., Pooja Potharaju

Integration of the gene unification pipeline into Galaxy., Carlos Reyes

The characterization of an improved murine model for Duchenne muscular dystrophy: the D2.B10-Dmdmdx/J mouse., Allison Saunders

Using mice to understand the metabolic syndrome., Nicole Savignac

The effect of the Spcar3 mutation on meiosis in male mice., Muriel Schwinn

Treemap visualization of enriched gene sets., Timothy Sears

The detection and quantification of the HSF-1 oligomerization in situ by proximity ligation assay (PLA)., Elisha Solowey

Vitamin D pathway polymorphisms and their contribution to the etiology of multiple sclerosis (MS)., India Stewart

TALEN targeting of mouse U2 snRNA genes., Yina Sun

The identification of differentially expressed miRNA in human pulmonary adenocarcinoma tumor progression., Megan Taylor

Identification of QTL and candidate genes underlying sleep., Gabriel Vela

Analysis of time series gene expression following nerve injury., David Wang

The subcellular localization of FMNL2., Tyana Warren