Eleven North Carolina high school students will get to experience the thrill of being immersed in life-changing research this summer when they join the labs of top scientists at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine through a pilot program called VetRISE.

Dr. Margaret Gruen, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist and prolific researcher at NC State, has been the driving force behind launching the Veterinary Research Internship for Scientific Exploration or VetRISE program, a direct result of her seeing a need to engage students in veterinary medical research before they get to college. 

“I’ve always been fascinated by talking to people who want to be veterinarians,” Gruen says. “They either knew when they were really little or they decided in college. There are exceptions, but it’s often kind of those extremes and very little discovery of veterinary medicine in high school. We wanted an opportunity to highlight the many areas of research possible at a veterinary school.” 

With the go-ahead from Dr. Joshua Stern, the CVM’s associate dean of research and graduate studies, Gruen and Dr. Morgan Ferrans spent almost a year unraveling the regulations regarding having minors on campus, nailing down the content for an intensive research lab “boot camp” for the students and then lining up faculty mentors.  Ferrans is a post-doctoral researcher in Gruen’s lab, which will host two of the high schoolers. 

“It’s never too early to introduce students to veterinary science,” said Stern, whose lab focused on feline cardiology is hosting a student. “We are confident that this program will help shape the future careers of these inspiring high-school students!”

Six other renowned NC State researchers also volunteered to mentor the students, who will be coming from the NC School of Science and Mathematics in Durham and Apex Friendship, Enloe, Holly Springs and Sanderson high schools in Wake County. They will spend five weeks working on the College of Veterinary Medicine campus.

“One of the things that will be so great is that this exposes them not only to veterinary medicine, but also to all of the things that you can do, research-wise, within veterinary medicine and on a veterinary campus,” Gruen said, “whether you’re a veterinarian or not.”

‘Yes, You Can’

Dr. Mike Sano, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Biomedical Sciences (and not a veterinarian), is a pioneer in using pulses of electricity to eliminate inoperable or metastatic cancer tumors. In his lab, he will be mentoring two of the high school students, along with two NC State veterinary students participating in the summer Veterinary Scholars Program, a couple of NC State undergraduates and his usual cohort of graduate students.

“I got my start in science with a professor who said, ‘Yes, you can come into my lab and do research,’ so I just feel grateful for that and want to be able to provide the opportunity to other students,” Sano said. “My primary expectation for these high school students is just that they come in and get a general understanding for how to behave and act in a lab and learn to use some of the tools that we have, but every student is different.”

The other participating faculty members and their research focuses are:

• Dr. Liara Gonzales, professor of gastroenterology and equine surgery, and Dr. Caroline McKinney: research assistant professor, equine intestinal injury and repair. 
• Dr. Cristina Lanzas, professor of infectious diseases: mathematical and computational epidemiology.
• Dr. Barbara Qurollo, research associate professor: vector-borne diseases in wildlife.
• Dr. Natasha Olby, professor of neurology and neurosurgery: geriatric medicine and the aging process.
• Dr. Katie Sheats, professor of equine primary care and associate dean and director of professional education and admissions: the innate immune system and the role neutrophils play in host defense and host injury. 

Dr. Gruen, whose lab is focused on measuring pain in companion animals, said she and Ferrans decided to line up the mentors first and then have the students apply for spots in their labs. The faculty members reviewed and selected their students.

When they arrive June 9, the students will complete all required university training through the “boot camp,” and each week they will have a seminar together to share what they’ve learned.

“I think having that kind of cohort feel is helpful for them,” Gruen said, “to make them feel comfortable in this new place, and having people who they know they can come to if they need help with anything.”

Sano said one thing he will be stressing is the importance of learning how to actually read a research paper.

“There are things that I wish I knew about even as a new graduate student that I like to introduce students to,” he said. “First and foremost, how do you read a scientific paper? You read the abstract, and then you look at the figures. And then how to find papers, how to just get a sense for what is and isn’t important in a manuscript.” 

Gruen and Ferrans took on all of the administrative tasks for VetRISE this year with the hope that having processes in place will simplify continuing the pilot program in future years.

“Now we know how to get the background checks run and how to coordinate with the schools and how to get the student applications through,” said Gruen, explaining that anyone working with minors has to be trained. “Once these pipelines are set up, it should be easier to continue. We hope to expand the number of labs and students participating in future years”

Excitement Builds

Ferrans helped launch a similar program, called BOOST Beyond, for high schoolers in the Triangle when she was a graduate student at Duke University

“I wanted to continue to support young students in STEM so I was so excited when Margaret asked if I were interested in helping create this new program,” Ferrans said. “This is exactly what I really wanted to do, and I’m so excited to have this!”

Ferrans said she is looking forward to being around teens with a strong desire to learn and to having the opportunity to affect their lives for the good.

“This is a voluntary summer experience for them so students who are applying to this kind of thing are really curious and excited,” she said. “They could be doing anything with their summer, but they’re choosing to do science, and sometimes their excitement and curiosity spark the most incredible questions, because they think about things in a new way.”

For Sano and the other faculty members, the VetRISE program also will give the veterinary and graduate students in their labs the invaluable opportunity to learn to mentor others, too.

“That’s the most important thing is helping them understand how to interact with folks who don’t have the same scientific literacy as them or the same experiences as them,” Sano said. “I think that’s the big benefit to my students, and beyond that, I view this program as part of the community service that we need to do as academics.”