Biomaterials Research
Chloe is an 11th grade student from Cate School, Santa Barbara, California. She intends to major in chemistry and decided to work on Biomaterials research in this mentorship program.
A science enthusiast, Chloe is currently taking classes for Advanced Chemistry and Honors Biology at school. She has taken Honors Chemistry, AP Biology, and AP Computer Science outside of school, receiving As in all classes. She is interested in the field of chemistry, particularly biomaterials research, and how it is innately interdisciplinary in the applications of that field.
Scope of the program
Overall structure
The mentorship program consisted in 8 weekly 1-on-1 online sessions and continuous email communication. The program included frontal lectures on biomaterials, brainstorming and writing sessions with the final goal of drafting a review paper on surface and bulk modifications of biomaterials for bone regeneration applications. had homework assignments consisting in searching and reading papers from the primary literature and writing short summaries or drafting new paragraphs of the paper
Learning objectives
- The principal goals of mentorship program consisted in consolidating her knowledge in biomaterials, expanding her understanding of tissue engineering and enhancing her writing skills by drafting a brief review paper on a topic of interest.
- Identify current challenges in bone regeneration
- Describe how surface and bulk modifications are used for improving the performances of biomaterials
- Choose a topic of interest in the healthcare/medicine field
- Enlist appropriate evidence
- Provide a critical overview of available data
What challenges did she face?
- Chloe is interested to pursue either a general chemistry, biochemistry, or a chemical engineering major. However, she has not explored much about each field to make the final decision.
How did our program in Biomaterials Research help her?
- Chloe needed mentoring to critically organize and discuss a large amount of information in biomaterials research.
- She also needed help to formulate her point of view and make critical discussion/conclusions over the selected topic rather than just summarizing the existing literature.
Matched professor:
An Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Brown University. She is also secretary of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society – Providence Section, Editorial Board Member of Science Progress (Sage Publishing) and peer review panelist for the American Heart Association Bioengineering-Basic Science (BSc3) group.
Recommendation letter
“I am happy to support Chloe with a reference letter. Let me know if I am still on time, I can put together a letter by Friday. Please send me the link or the email address I can use to send the letter.
Chloe always met and exceeded my expectations. She had a strong passion for the healthcare and medicine fields and continued development of her understanding.“
Mentor from Brown University
Excerpts from the student’s work
As part of the research mentorship program, Chloe completed a research paper on “Surface and Bulk Modifications for Biomaterials Used In Bone Regeneration”.
