Pipette grant for Whitham; STEAM scholarship for Gandhi

Pipette grant for Whitham follows meeting

You never know what opportunities may arise from a scientific meeting. Just ask graduate student Danielle Whitham of Clarkson University, the owner of a new set of pipettes funded by the Hamilton Company's pipette grant.

Courtesy of Danielle Whitham

Danielle Whitham won a grant for these new pipettes from the Hamilton Company.

"I had heard about this grant opportunity at the ASBMB conference I recently attended," Whitham, a student in the biochemistry and proteomics group with chemistry and biomolecular science professor Costel Darie, told her university's press office. "I decided to apply for the grant and was surprised to see that we were chosen to receive it."

Whitham's research, which she presented at the annual meeting, focuses on protein biomarkers for breast cancer, in search of which she screens serum and breast milk from women with cancer and healthy controls. Identifying breast cancer early in young women is of particular interest because mammography is less effective in younger, denser tissues. Darie's lab has reported some preliminary success in finding proteins that are differentially expressed between breast milk from donors without cancer and donors whose cancer was diagnosed either before or after their donation.

The Hamilton Company is funding monthly $1,000 credits throughout 2022 to support teaching and research labs in purchasing its products. See eligibility guidelines here.

STEAM scholarship for Gandhi

Khushi Gandhi, a sophomore at Northeastern University and a member of the school’s American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Student Chapter, has received a scholarship from the educational nonprofit organization Aspire2STEAM.

Khushi Gandhi

Gandhi, who is studying biochemistry with a minor in public health on the premedical track, aspires to become an obstetrician–gynecologist and bring novel treatments to bear on female infertility. Since December 2021, she has worked in the lab of ASBMB member Mary Jo Ondrechen, helping senior students on a computational chemistry project seeking new metabolic tracers for positron emission tomography imaging. She also has worked as a shadow/intern with the Health Administration of Pennsylvania Emergency Management Team and in a lung cancer screening lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, and she a spent the past summer interning in a neurosurgery practice.

Aspire2STEAM is a nonprofit that supports scholarships for women and girls seeking a college education or other training and certification in science, technology, engineering, mathematics or the arts.