BROWNWOOD – October 4, 2017 – This past summer, Howard Payne University senior Abraham Cooper of Early participated in the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) Summer Medical and Research Training (SMART) Program. The program was a twelve-week research opportunity for top undergraduate students across the country interested in biomedical sciences.
Cooper was one of five students selected to be mentored by doctors in the research program with Texas Children’s Pathology and one of three students who got the opportunity to participate in the BCM SMART program. He worked in the lab of Dr. Daniel Lacorazza at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Cooper’s research, titled “Testing Pharmacological Activation of the Tumor Suppressor KLF4 in Acute Myeloid Leukemia,” included experiments such as immunoblots, cytotoxicity assays and flow cytometry.
Along with the other students in the program, Cooper was mentioned in “The Path Report,” the Texas Children’s Hospital Department of Pathology newsletter, and will be included in a 2018 publication for the research he completed this past summer.
“It was a blessing to be part of the program,” said Cooper. “I am grateful for the faculty and staff at HPU who have prepared me to flourish in a research program at one of the top medical and research centers in the world.”
Dr. Derek Smith, associate professor of chemistry at HPU, said summer research is an invaluable experience for students.
“Students are given a primary responsibility for one aspect of a funded research project and collaborate with experts,” he said. “One reward of summer research for students is that they usually earn a mention in a published research article that benefits students as they apply for further professional study. However, in this case, the gene therapy that Mr. Cooper worked on could lead to effective treatments for certain types of leukemia. Such contributions to medical science are impossible to overestimate.”
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Cutline: HPU student Abraham Cooper participated in a Summer Medical and Research Training Program recently.