What biomedical discoveries can be made in three months?

When Cameron Camp arrived in Roanoke for his summer undergraduate research fellowship, he didn't know what to expect. He wasn’t expecting to hike the Appalachian Trail or define peptides for a kindergarten audience.

But 10 weeks later, as he stood beside a research poster describing his findings on a rare condition that increases the risk of dangerous irregular heart rhythms, he had done that and more.

“I was so excited because I knew this was a great opportunity and a chance to be in a new environment. There are so many different considerations and steps that went into doing this research, but I gained some amazing insight on the heart,” Camp said. “The most rewarding part was just seeing it all come together and finally having the poster in my hand.”

The poster presentations were part of a symposium held annually at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. It’s an opportunity for visiting students, especially those enrolled in one of the institute’s summer undergraduate research fellowships — neuroSURF and cardioSURF — and the Virginia Tech School of Medicine’s Early Identification Program SURF to share their findings.

“All of the students who come to us, they've largely learned science in the classroom, where the answers are already known,” said Anthony LaMantia, director of the institute’s Center for Neurobiology Research. LaMantia leads the neuroSURF program. “What you see today is what I consider the most exciting experience that you can have when you're training as a scientist, and that is when you're actually explaining an answer that nobody knew until you found it.”

Students shared research on neurobiology, exercise medicine, and more. Two students who participated in the event conducted their summer research at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute’s Cancer Research Center in Washington, D.C. Many are pursuing careers in academia or healthcare. In addition to their lab research, students also attend seminars, professional development programs, and social events.

“This cohort really understood the magnitude of what the programs entailed, from the workload to the presentation, to the importance of the research,” said Alexandria Pilot Chambers, who helps lead the summer programs and is assistant director of admissions and recruitment for the Translational Biology Medicine and Health Graduate Program. “They were very eager to learn.”

Three students were part of a partnership between the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine's Early Identification Program, which places a select group of undergraduates in institute labs before they apply to medical school. Students work alongside faculty researchers on active projects during their first summer in the program.

“The goal of the Early Identification Program is to show these students early on the breadth of what a medical education can encompass,” said Katherine Murphy, who coordinated this summer’s Early Identification Program. Murphy is assistant director of health professions advising at Virginia Tech’s career center. “We want to train not just physicians, but physician-scientists.”

Past participants offer a glimpse into where this year's cardioSURF and neuroSURF fellows may be headed. Some of the students enrolled at Virginia Tech stayed with their labs throughout the academic year, building on their summer projects. Others from universities around the nation returned to Roanoke after completing their undergraduate programs to join the Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health graduate program, choosing to conduct their doctoral research in Fralin Biomedical Research Institute labs after getting their first taste of research through a SURF program.

The symposium included a poster competition judged by institute faculty, postdoctoral associates, and graduate research assistants, with awards given for the strongest research and presentations across several categories.