Thanks to the efforts of one of Penn's first McNair Scholars, cancer may one day be treated with a compound discovered in marine invertebrates. The Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement Program awards grant money to distinguished college students whose demographic groups are poorly represented at the graduate level. College senior Mickea Rose is one of 14 Penn undergraduates who won the prestigious grant and the first to give a public presentation of her research. Of the winners, she is one of only two scientists, with the other students earning distinction in the liberal arts. "I had already applied to other science summer programs," Rose said. "I had never heard of it before, so I wasn't really expecting anything." Rose has been working with a team of scientists who synthesize tamandarins, chemicals discovered in marine invertebrates which have demonstrated promising tumor-fighting properties. "I think the odds of it happening are really high," Rose said of the chemicals' potential use in humans. "These compounds... can be used at lower levels than some of the other cancer treatments that are being used now, such as chemo... and therefore would have less side effects." However, Rose explained that such applications are probably years away. "I think it's going to take a long time to make it into a prescription drug," she said. Students who receive the McNair grants typically spend the summer after their sophomore year doing research at their home college, and the following summer doing research at another institution. According to Malcolm Bonner, Penn's director of the McNair program, "The purpose of the McNair program is to identify and select high-achieving sophomores and juniors who meet Federal eligibility guidelines." Bonner said the program targets students who are the first in their families to attend college, those who come from low-income families and others who are demographically underrepresented in graduate schools. "We identify and select these students and prepare them for graduate school and the eventual attainment of Ph.D.s, eventually diversifying university faculties nationwide," Bonner said. Rose, who was born in New York City to Jamaican parents, has been accepted to the biochemistry graduate programs at Johns Hopkins, Emory and Notre Dame universities. Penn is the only school in the Ivy League to participate in the McNair program, and one of fewer than 160 nationwide. The grants are funded by the Department of Education. The program was named for Ronald E. McNair, a physicist who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. The average grant is $206,000 per university. Penn received $190,000 because a lower than average number of students applied. Bonner expects Penn to field a larger group for the next competition. "We're going to be conducting outreach and accepting applications and interviewing applicants," Bonner said, "and we're going to... get our number up to 20 students." The next luncheon is scheduled for February 14, where College senior Erika Parkins will present her research on the media's representation of black men, and its impact on their positions in society.
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