"THE
HEART OF THE MATTER"
a special program of
the National Emergency Medicine Association
(NEMA)
Week: 592.6b
Guest: Duncan Moore, pre-med student, U. of Virginia
Topic: Student research program at the NIH
Host/Producer: Steve Girard
NEMA: Duncan Moore, a pre-med student in his sophomore year at the University of Virginia, spent the summer working at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of National Institutes of Health near Washington, D.C. He was drawn to the neurological institute because of his interest in studying Alzheimer’s disease. Moore describes some of the research he’s been involved in, past and present.
MOORE: I was working with animals, rats mostly, performing surgery on them...and mostly, what I was doing was I was using a protein that’s been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease called presinolyn 1...and was using the anti ? of that gene to knock out it’s MRNA in the brain and hoping to see some Alzheimer’s effects in the learning memory of rats. This year they decided to let me explore some other areas, and right now I’m working with human skin cells, and we’ve actually developed a dye that we think may dye the skin cells...just =normal patients skin cells differently.
NEMA: Hundreds of high school and college kids get jobs each summer at the NIH, offering hands on experience and practical knowledge. As part of the summer program, the Neurology Institute sponsors student seminars, workshops and lectures, on everything from the latest in research to applying for medical school.
...Coming up in future Heart of the Matter programs....
Children who are language learning disabled have traditionally been prey to many problems, low achievement in school, emotional and behavioral problems, low self-esteem. We’ll talk to researchers who have found that many of these children have a dysfunction in how they process information, not in their ability to understand...and after many years, have developed a method of helping these children sift through the hubub and get the messages that help them build a pattern of learning.
Also... we’ll give you an update on Lupus, the vicious and arbitrary disease that can strike anywhere in the body. Researchers have developed some new techniques that, in some cases, have virtually eliminated the symptoms and effects of lupus...but now have to look for the long term effects on the disease. We’ll talk with an expert on lupus from Johns Hopkins Medical School...
So, join us each week at this time for stories about our health, and the people who work hard to help us stay healthy. And check out the NEMA website, at www.nemahealth.org/ I’m Steve Girard at The Heart of the Matter.