REU Site: Nature's machinery through the prism of physics, biology, chemistry and engineering

Clemson University, Clemson SC

Investigators

Abstract

This REU Site award to Clemson University, located in Clemson, SC, will support the training of 10 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2019-2021. Program participants work with faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and other undergraduates on collaborative research exploring biology through the prism of physics, biology, chemistry and engineering (e.g., computational and experimental approaches for molecular insights into amyloid aggregation, studies of how missense mutations affect protein-DNA binding affinity, and quantifying properties of active polymer networks and gels from cytoskeletal proteins). The focus is on cross-disciplinary training; while each participant has a specific project with their own mentor, participants are paired to work together within a larger collaboration. The program includes a biophysics boot-camp, seminar series, workshops on research tools and professional development, journal club, off-campus field trips, ethics training, and cohort-building activities. Participants regularly present their contributions to collaborators and hear about the research of their peers. Each participant presents a poster of their own work adjacent to their collaborator's poster at the final summer research symposium, writes their own research manuscript, and is encouraged to present their work at scientific conferences. Participants also engage in outreach activities throughout the summer. It is anticipated that a total of 30 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities and from underrepresented minority groups, will be trained in the program. The program is designed to give participants a sense of the mutual contributions that physical scientists can make to biology, and that biologists can make to the physical sciences. Students will learn how research is conducted, and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences. A common web-based assessment tool used by all REU Site programs funded by the Division of Biological Infrastructure will be used to determine the effectiveness of the training program. Students will be tracked after the program to determine their career paths. Students will be asked to respond to an automatic email sent via the NSF reporting system. More information about the program is available by visiting www.clemson.edu/physics/biophysics-reu, or by contacting the PI (Dr. Joshua Alper at alper@clemson.edu) or co-PI (Dr. Hugo Sanabria at hsanabr@clemson.edu). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.