A Carleton student is the first from Carleton and one of 25 worldwide chosen to do research in Vienna this summer with the Vienna Biocenter Summer School, according to a Carleton press release.
Fourth-year neuroscience student Bryan Luu was one of 375 applicants, most of whom are studying at Ivy Leagues schools such as Oxford or Yale, the press release said.
“I feel pretty excited because it's an opportunity to go travel and do research at the same time — two things I really like,” Luu said.
“I'm also pretty grateful, he said. “When I applied for it I didn't really expect anything.”
Luu said he just stumbled on the opportunity one day.
“A lot of people ask me if anyone told me about this, but what I ended up doing is I just went online, and looked for these things, and then I decided to apply,” he said.
Luu said he will be working at the Bussingler Lab at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology doing research on stem cells, and what causes them to develop into other cells.
Stem cells are cells in our bodies which can be coaxed into becoming other kinds of cells, such as those present in a heart, or skin, or other body parts.
“What I want to do eventually is stem cell therapy in order to repair injured spinal chords,” Luu said. “The techniques I learn in the summer will probably be used again in the future.”
He said he is no stranger to this kind of research, as he has already performed similar research in molecular biology with Carleton professor Ken Storey.
“Of course, there's references and that,” Luu said, “but what I think made my application stand out was the techniques that I used in my lab.”
“Usually those who go to a new lab have to spend half a month [to] a month to just learn these techniques,” he said. “I really explained how I have been trained in these techniques, and how I can get some work done there right off the bat.”