{"id":89527,"date":"2018-08-20T09:40:47","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T13:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=89527"},"modified":"2018-08-20T16:50:05","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T20:50:05","slug":"future-scientists-medics-welcomed-burnett-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/future-scientists-medics-welcomed-burnett-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Scientists, Medics Welcomed To Burnett School"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jim Heidings has always loved science and research. He remembers as a child watching scientists on TV working in the lab, wearing their white coats and doing \u201ccool\u201d research.<\/p>\n
Sixty-one new graduate students begin programs at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences this week, including 17 doctoral candidates and 42 master\u2019s students.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cI was never a strong academic and so I thought it was a dream that was far-fetched for me,” he says. \u201cIt was not until I did a lab-based course as an undergrad that I realized that science and research is not something that is impossible to do, it\u2019s something that you can learn to do and I started doing more of it and now I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, as a budding scientist, he researches actin, a protein that allows cancer cells to metastasize or spread with hopes of finding a new anti-metastatic drug.<\/p>\n
Heidings, who begins his master\u2019s degree in biotechnology<\/a> this fall, is one of 61 new graduate students who begin programs at the College of Medicine\u2019s Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n
The group includes 17 doctoral candidates and 42 master\u2019s students who, with the mentorship of faculty, will do research in areas including infectious diseases, neurosciences, cancer and cardiovascular\/metabolic diseases.<\/p>\n
Two students are enrolled in a joint M.D.-Ph.D. program<\/a> that will prepare them to become physician-scientists.<\/p>\n