Sep 12, 2023

From learning to discovery: LMP's SURE Program culminates in inspiring research day

Programs: Undergraduate, Agile education, Impactful research

Students and faculty gather in a large room to look at research posters

By Jenni Bozec

On August 11, the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine showcased their summer students in a research day.

A culmination of the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Program (SURE), the research day is an opportunity for students to present what they had discovered and learned over the summer. Undergraduate students join the program from universities across Canada, getting an opportunity to develop their research skills. The program emphasizes skills development and tries to attract students seeking their first lab experience and from underrepresented groups.

Program coordinator, Dr. Jeff Lee commented, “It’s always amazing to see how much the students achieve. Many are in a lab for the first time, so they have a steep learning curve and yet seeing the data they manage to collate and analyse is extraordinary. I’m proud to see the posters they are presenting today – they are very impressive.”

This notion was reinforced by the LMP faculty who judged posters. Judge, Dr. Adele Changoor commented, “It’s extremely difficult to rank the posters, I can’t get over how high the quality is and how much they have all achieved in such a short time - it’s outstanding!”

After the posters, participants in the program listened to an afternoon of research talks from LMP graduate students. MD/PhD candidate, Richard Huang (MD/PhD candidate) presented on “The characterization of cellular and animal models of clear cell renal cell carcinoma”. Danielle Karakas, PhD candidate and Vanier Scholar presented on her first first-author paper “Novel mechanisms of thromopoietin generation: the critical role of Kupffer cells”. Finally, PhD candidate and CIHR Doctoral Fellow, Shawn Goyal, presented on “Detection of a bacterial metabolite by a rare intestinal stem cell population drives epithelial regeneration”. Dr. Lee then gave a talk on graduate school, joined by the other presenters for a Q&A.

To round up the day, Dr. Lee and Department Chair, Dr. Rita Kandel, presented the poster awards (see below).

Tesam Ahmed, a Biomedical Sciences student from Toronto Metropolitan University, commented “The LMP SURE program was a really enriching experience, it taught me more about different areas of molecular biology, and how to communicate research to an audience. My supervisor, Dr. Hamel, as well as Dr. Lee, provided a great environment to gain and benefit from valuable research experience.”

“I really enjoyed working in Dr. Amy Wong’s lab during my LMP405 research course and continuing this work with the lab during the summer for SURE was a great opportunity. I’ve had so much fun, a high level of autonomy and managed to hone some of my research skills,” commented Bonnie Yang – a recent graduate from the LMP Specialist Program and former LMPSU President.

Vallen Lin, also joined the Wong lab for the summer from his Health and Engineering Science program at McMaster and said, “I wanted to get some networking opportunities as well as experience presenting research which I’ve never had the opportunity to do before. I also wanted to get out of my comfort zone and do something new. It’s been a very humbling experience as I feel I didn’t know anything coming into this, but I’ve learned so much and now understand complex concepts that were so foreign to me when I started”.

See all the poster prize winners below!