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Track: Molecular Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics
Hometown: Dobson, N.C. |
Jamie Wood sums up his experiences as a SURF intern in 2000 in three words: science, friendship and love.
Throughout that summer he conducted scientific research aimed at improving treatments for multiple sclerosis and decided to pursue biomedical research as a career. He also lived and studied close to other Mayo Clinic College of Medicine students and formed new friendships. One of those friends is now his wife.
Jamie's SURF research examined ways to reverse the damage that multiple sclerosis causes to myelin, the fatty sheath that protects nerves and causes them to function properly in the human body. Multiple sclerosis affects the brain and central nervous system, causing a decline in muscle coordination, visual sensation and other nerve signals. Jamie studied in a laboratory that screened human antibodies to find forms that deactivate the harmful effects of the disease at the cellular level and allow myelin to regrow. Project coordinators hope the ongoing research will one day provide a cure for the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis.
The experience Jamie had that summer confirmed his desire to pursue research as a career. "The program was very well organized, and it gave us a good understanding about what graduate studies in the biomedical sciences are like," says Jamie. "SURF benefits from the overwhelming quality of research done at Mayo Clinic and also provides an opportunity to meet new people from all over."
Jamie is now a first-year student in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Mayo Graduate School. His research interests are focused on cancer research and establishing how damage to mechanisms that regulate activity in human cells is related to the instability of genes and the development of cancer. The goal of the research is to find out more about how cancer is formed at the cellular level.
Jamie's motivation to conduct biomedical research comes from an ongoing desire to understand disease on a molecular level. Jamie hopes that his work will one day be instrumental in finding novel therapies to treat diseases that currently have no cure.
"Despite the occasional feeling that you aren't getting anywhere, medical research does help us gain knowledge that can hopefully be applied to help people in the future," says Jamie. "The SURF Program helped me establish firmly that research is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life."
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