At a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s medical oncology laboratory, Sean Burns, E’13, is working intensively to develop and improve nanoparticle screening techniques for assessing the efficacy of potential drugs on different types of cancer.
Sean Burns (Photo by Mary Knox Merrill)
Burns, a fifth-year chemical engineering major, expressed his interest towards cancer research. Although several cancer treatments are available, occurrence and mortality is ever-increasing. He intends to join medical school next fall.
Burns is one among over a dozen undergraduate students from throughout the country taking part in the Steamboat Foundation’s 10-week Summer Scholars Program. The foundation, which encourages students showing promise to become leaders in their selected fields, granted $10,000 to Burns. Every year, the foundation selects one student from each of its partner universities to undergo an internship with one of its grant partners, in areas ranging from hospitality to healthcare.
Burns received two six-month experiential-learning opportunities from Millennium Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During this period, Burns developed over 100 molecules. The undergraduate student-researcher stated that he became a key member of the team quickly. This compound designing experience with Millennium Pharmaceuticals equipped Burns for his work at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Burns informed that he was performing advanced chemistry research with new chemicals and reagents that researchers have just started utilizing in this decade. He wants to use that experience to design dyes more efficiently for assay screening at Dana-Farber.
Source: http://www.northeastern.edu
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