Student Profiles

Charlene at Papago Park in Tempe, AZ

Charlene Bashore
B. S. in Biochemistry, 2009
Current Career: Ph. D. program at University of California, Berkeley (starting in Fall 2009)

Charlene Bashore is a biochemistry major and senior in the department. She is one of three 2008 national Goldwater scholarship winners at ASU. Bashore began her undergraduate research experience in a general chemistry course where she was offered a position in the laboratory of Peter Williams.

"Dr. Williams has been incredibly patient and helpful throughout my time here at ASU," says Bashore. "The research I am doing is interesting, pertinent, and I am glad to be there."

Williams' lab group is a part of the National Human Genome Research Institute project. The goal is to develop a more cost-efficient, quick way to sequence DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code for all living things. The lab's work with DNA sequencing focuses on a process called sequencing by synthesis. The process is used to determine the order of the nucleotide bases - adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine (A,G,C,T) - within a molecule of DNA. The nucleotides are a sort of genetic alphabet. Different combinations of these bases are used to make proteins, the building blocks of life.

"My aspect of the project deals with the enzyme DNA-polymerase, a molecular machine in charge of taking in the bases that constitute DNA (A,G,C,T) and pairing them up with those on an existing DNA strand," says Bashore. "By feeding in fluorescently-labeled nucleotides we can measure if the added base corresponds to the base on the other strand," she explains. Bashore is looking at energy levels of the DNA-polymerase molecules and examining where they attach themselves to other molecules. "With some work, I can measure the molecules gathered from our sequencing method," says Bashore. The skills she is learning now are important. They will help her in future projects to study the behavior of DNA-polymerase in specific situations.

Charlene was named to the 2009 USA Today's All - USA College Academic First Team.

Lara enjoying the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix

Lara Cardy
B.S. Biochemistry, 2009
Current Career: Ph.D. program in the Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis (Starting in Fall 2009

I began my ASU career as a Speech and Hearing Science student with designs on becoming a speech pathologist or audiologist, with a goal of working with students with developmental disabilities. Starting my sophomore year in high school, I was part of an international organization, Best Buddies, that placed developmentally disabled students in one-on-one friendships with their typically-functioning peers. I was buddies with two students, one with Down’s Syndrome and the second with cerebral palsy, both of whom had bigger personalities and hearts than the average student. As president of Best Buddies, I created friendships for these students and spent every morning with them as a teaching assistant for their moderately mentally disabled class. One day in this class, all of our students were checking out books from the library, except Lindsey, an autistic girl who forgot to return her last book. She grew angry waiting and began stripping down. First her shirt, then her shorts, and she clearly had no intention of stopping there. Each day as a teaching assistant was certainly an adventure, but this experience encouraged me to take up my first paying job at a summer camp for severely mentally disabled children who were non-verbal, wore diapers, suffered from seizures, and ate only through feeding tubes. The best thing about the summer camps is that our participants were treated like normal kids- we went swimming and bowling, made arts and crafts, and has movie days. All of the activities, especially swimming and bowling, were a lot of work for us counselors- strapping all of our students in wheelchairs on the buses and arranging their floating devices once at the pool- but were tons of fun once the work was done.

As a freshman in speech and hearing science enrolled in a graduate-level course on Pervasive Developmental Disorders, specifically autism, I challenged myself to learn about the population I had been working with for years at the highest academic level. I became my professor’s research assistant, exploring the impact of sign language on word acquisition in autistic children and joined a graduate early-intervention team for a two-year old autistic girl. While I was involved in Applied Behavioral Analysis, speech, and feeding therapy, with this client, I became acutely aware of the strengths and weaknesses of therapeutic approaches. Frustrated with aspects of behavioral intervention, I stepped entirely out of my comfort zone and became an intern with the Neurogenomics Division of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) to explore the molecular basis of autism. I soon discovered western blots, microarrays, sequencing, and genotyping and I was hooked and became a biochemistry student immediately!

Now that I have made what was a terrifying change in academic disciplines from speech and hearing science to biochemistry, I’m preparing to make yet another transition into neuroscience. Beginning in the fall, I will be a Ph.D. student in the Neuroscience program at the University of California, Davis. Now, I am not only facing more change in my academic area, I will be facing large changes in my surroundings as I become one of only eight students entering the program this fall. After thriving on the constant energy of ASU’s large student body, becoming a part of a small community will be refreshing, and, I expect, somewhat lonely. Among all this change, I am looking forward to embracing the next steps in my academic career in a community that celebrates its bicycle culture and farmer’s markets.  

James playing softball at Liu Group Outing Summer 2008

James Cronican
B. S. in Biochemistry, 2007
Current Career: Harvard University Chemical Biology PhD Candidate

James grew up in Omaha, Nebraska and joined the Honors College at ASU in 2003 as a National Merit Scholar. In addition to working hard and receiving excellent grades in his courses, James had a broad undergraduate experience. When he first began his academic career, he performed research studying metal binding proteins under Dr. Wilson Francisco. During this time, he developed a design for an instrument that could rapidly and automatically extract DNA and RNA from tissue. This design formed the basis of a business plan that led to a $17,000 grant from Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative. He was able to pursue this work in the laboratory of Dr. Frederic Zenhausern. In recognition of his outstanding leadership and intellectual acheivements, James received a Goldwater Scholarship, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and was named to USA Today's 2007 All-USA College Academic Second Team.

Since receiving a B. S. in Biochemistry in May 2007, James has enrolled in Harvard University's Chemical Biology Ph.D. Program and joined Dr. David Liu's research group. David Liu's research group applies evolutionary principles to organic chemistry and chemical biology. James has been busy researching properties of 'supercharged' proteins. [http://evolve.harvard.edu/51-gfp.pdf]

In reflecting back on his undergraduate days, he says that his time at ASU prepared him very well to pursue his scientific studies. "The classes at ASU are very thorough and provide a solid foundation in biochemistry. I felt I was just as well prepared as my peers who had studied at universities like Harvard or MIT. And a great strength of ASU is the opportunity to learn outside of class. There are so many resources for a student interested in undergraduate research and I would highly recommend seeking them out." James says that he is continually reminded of the quality education he received at ASU; from ASU faculty presenting seminars at Harvard, to reading articles on photosynthesis in Science by Dr. Jim Allen [to reading high profile papers by ASU researchers], or by walking past Boston biotech companies based upon ASU technology.

Michael at an English class held for the children of migrant workers outside of Beijing, China

Michael M. McDowell
B.S. in Biochemistry, 2009
Current Career: M.D. program at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons (Starting in Fall 2009)

Michael came to Arizona State and the Barrett Honors College in the fall of 2005 from Iron Mountain, Michigan as a National Merit Scholar. While initially majoring in Microbiology, he changed into the Biochemistry program upon completion of Organic Chemistry I with Dr. Ian Gould. Michael would successfully complete his B.S. in Biochemistry in the Spring of 2009. He was awarded the ASU Moeur Award, which has been given since 1901 to the student or students achieving the highest academic standing. Michael also had the distinction of earning a perfect 4.0 GPA, having earned only A's and A+'s during his four years at Arizona State. As well as Biochemistry, Michael also became interested in Dance while attending ASU. "At first, it was just Latin dancing, but after a while I started to get interested in Ballet and Modern forms as well. That's the great thing about Arizona State, there are so many people with so many interests, and everyone of them is catered to. If you can't find something to study at ASU, there really isn't anything else out there," says McDowell. He eventually studied all three styles, and performed in several Latin dance competitions and modern dance performances in Phoenix.

Outside of class, Michael was heavily involved in educational activities. He was a member of Arizona Mentor Society, an organization dedicated to providing mentorship and tutoring to inner city middle school students. He was Vice President for two years and President during his senior year. He worked part time as a teacher for a local educational company, and hopes that his experiences will make him a better teacher and mentor in a career as an academic physician after his training at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. Michael hopes to use his biochemistry degree to also study molecular genomics while attending Columbia University, which has always been his passion. However, the research that McDowell has done so far is of an entirely different nature. "I work with bugs. That's the easiest way to explain it," said Michael. Specifically, Michael won a $10,000 Fellowship grant through the SOLUR program to study the effect of hydrocarbons on recognition between nestmates of the ant species Temnothorax rugatulus, and also how this recognition is used during migrations between nest sites. Michael felt that his work with Dr. Stephen Pratt was a excellent way to prepare for future research, regardless of the similarities or differences. "It was really a great experience. I felt like I was really a valuable member of the team, because I was a biochemist tackling a problem in a lab full of biologists and psychologists. I felt like I was bringing an important new angle to the group." Michael's research culminated in his honors thesis "The Artificial Ant: Analysis of the Migratory Mechanism of Temnothorax rugatulus via the Application of Cuticular Hydrocarbons to Teflon Beads," and the results of his project and later work are in the process of being published in a co-authorship with Dr. Stephen Pratt and Dr. Jürgen Liebig.

Looking back on his four years, Michael had much to say on the opportunities that he has been given. "It was a great experience, here at ASU. I rubbed shoulders with people from all over the country when I was interviewing for medical school. They had all done great and amazing things, but none of them had done anything that I hadn't or couldn't have done here at ASU. The biggest difference was that I got the feeling that everything was a lot more relaxed and more easily accessed here at ASU than at a lot of other universities. The faculty have always been encouraging, interesting, and intelligent. Also, my classmates were never competing with each other. It was always very cooperative, and if someone had an interest they would share it with everyone else. Having worked in interdisciplinary research, I have seen the positive effects that such an environment can have, and it was a major factor when I was deciding between medical schools.I really don't think that I could have thrived as much anywhere else but here."