A mid-March deadline is approaching for underrepresented students to apply for summer internships at the Cellular Senescent Network (SenNet) Program at Yale.
The SenNet Consortium for Underrepresented Student Program (CUSP) is a wonderful opportunity for undergraduate students who are members of an underrepresented group to participate in an internship in this cutting-edge field. Cellular senescence is the state when cells can no longer divide, a permanent condition that can be beneficial and detrimental to the organism where the cells live.
CUSP internships run from June 5 to August 18 and students receive a stipend, housing, and technology assistance if needed. The deadline to apply is March 15 and full details, including an application form and descriptions of participating consortium members, can be found here.
Selected trainees will learn the latest senescence research and technologies in SenNet host labs and participate in a virtual weekly SenNet meeting as a valuable career development and networking opportunity. Overall, the NIH Common Fund, sponsor of the program, is optimistic about the future of SenNet, not only for its potential to advance human health research, but also for the opportunities the program can offer to early-career scientists interested in this promising field.
A number of institutions, including Yale, are part of the SenNet Consortium, which identify and characterize senescent cells throughout the human body by looking at various organs and using a variety of omics techniques to map where these cells reside in the body. There are two Tissue Mapping Centers (TMCs) at Yale – one mapping human lymphoid tissues (lymph node, bone marrow and tonsils), and one mapping mouse lymphoid tissues (spleen, lymph node and thymus). Both TMCs are complementary to each other, in that information found in the human TMC can be tested using mouse models in the Murine TMC.
The Summer 2023 internships available at Yale are:
- Murine TMC, co-PIs are Vishwa Deep Dixit, DVM, PhD, and Ruth Montgomery, PhD. Laboratory of Dr. Vishwa Deep Dixit: Project available to study effects of aging on murine spleen, lymph node and thymus and identification of key biomarkers defining aging. Studies for Summer 2023 include advanced imaging of tissues.
- Human TMC, co-PIs are Rong Fan, PhD, and Stephanie Halene, MD. Laboratory of Dr. Stephanie Halene: The study of cellular senescence in primary lymph tissues from younger and older human subjects. Laboratory of Dr. Rong Fan: The Fan lab has developed novel omics methods to study spatial expression of proteins, mRNAs and the underlying epigenetic mechanisms related to aging.