A Matter of Health

The next generation

By Ruth SoRelle, M.P.H.

Each summer, at Baylor College of Medicine, other Texas Medical Center institutions and biomedical research facilities around the world, the average age drops significantly. The reason? An influx of young would-be scientists who come for education and a first-hand look at research.

These programs are important for many reasons. For the youngsters – some still in high school and others in undergraduate education at universities – it means a chance to do some hands-on science. Only by actually experiencing the work in the laboratory and the give-and-take among scientists will they be able to decide whether that is the kind of work they want to pursue.

It gives the laboratories a sense of what's coming. Where are the next new scientists being trained, and how well trained are they?

Passing the torch from one generation to the next is a key part of any biomedical institutions, and it begins with these summer programs.

Certainly, many of those who come to the laboratories this summer will not end up scientists. They will decide that life in the laboratory, supported by the "soft money" of grants, is not for them.

The "bug" will bite others, and they will become the lifelong scientists that we need. Ask a scientist today when he knew he was destined to become a researcher, and he will point to a summer job or a special project that triggered his interest.

"I had planned to become a practicing doctor and then that summer in the laboratory of ____ happened, and I decided to go into research," he or she will tell you.

It's not an easy life. They often spend days and night pursuing tedious work in the laboratory that might or might not pan out into a worthwhile discovery. Their ideas are challenged daily by their mentors and their peers. And they become part of the unending grant cycle that spells out whether their research can be pursued or not.

They will plan experiments, perform them and write about them in journals. Each represents a step along the path to understanding some biological fact. What makes an organism tick is a complex cycle, and we are only beginning to understand how it works. Each step in the process is important, and understanding how it works in a healthy cell means that we can then pinpoint where it goes wrong in an unhealthy one.

It is a story that has generational influences, and it is fitting that the generations of young scientists who will answer many of its puzzles start that journey here, where they can be mentored by their peers who have long followed that same path.