Ben Barnes, an undergraduate student in the College of Arts & Sciences and topical studies major with a focus on aging and gerontology, was announced as a 2009 American Physiological Society Undergraduate Research Fellow. Fellowship winners spend the summer in the laboratory of an established scientist and APS member. Now in its 10th year, this program aims to excite and encourage students about careers in biomedical research.

"The APS fellowship is a tremendous opportunity for me to be involved in high level research in the field in which I will likely work for quite some time," said Barnes, an international student from Australia.

"It will improve my knowledge of muscle physiology, and of research in general. I really think that my education has been improved by my involvement in undergraduate research, which I owe in large part to my acceptance as a Chellgren Fellow in the Fall of 2008. I am very grateful to Philip Kraemer, Robert Tannenbaum, Lynn Hiler and everybody else involved in the Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence."

During the Program, each Fellow will participate in hands-on research experience in the lab of an established investigator learning to develop a hypothesis, design and troubleshoot experiments, collect and analyze data, write up and present results. They will have opportunities to network with other undergraduates interested in biomedical research, to explore the nature of research and how scientists think about their specific question, to explore career options and what it takes to be successful in those careers, and have their career questions answered by members of the Career Opportunities in Physiology Committee.

Barnes' academic advisor is Esther Dupont-Versteegden, an associate professor in the College of Health Sciences, Division of Physical Therapy. "Ben came to my lab in the late summer of last year looking for a place where he could gain experience doing basic science research on a translational project," Dupont-Versteegden stated.

"My laboratory focuses on studying the underlying mechanisms of skeletal muscle atrophy in general and those involved in the aged in particular. We found a project that was of interest to him where we study the involvement of cell death pathways in muscle atrophy. He very quickly picked up the techniques in the laboratory and we gained some interesting information about cell death pathways that may lead us to try interventions in our animal model."

"Ben is eager to move the project forward and I have to put brakes on him sometimes, because he thinks three steps ahead. He shows incredible initiative in finding conferences as venues for data presentation and applying for fellowships to fund his research endeavors. With the fellowship from the APS he will be able to concentrate on his research project this summer and he will present his data at the Experimental Biology meeting next April."

Click here to read more about the APS Fellowship