Only nine students were selected to work alongside renowned Salk Institute researchers, exploring high-level science and careers to shape their futures.

Salk Institute for Biological Studies is patently pioneering scientific breakthroughs from its La Jolla home base and is also leading the local industry on another front: its summer outreach programs, which get students from high school through university up close with discovery.

Within Salk’s Heithoff-Brody High School Summer Scholar Program, nine San Diego high school students – selected from 417 applicants – took part in a summer internship, conducting meaningful research while receiving one-on-one mentorship from Salk scientists.

Image courtesy of Salk Institute

The eight-week program, which ended Aug 7, is a paid internship, an anomaly among similar summer offerings. Another difference: at other institutions, internships are only dry labs (meaning data processing, computer modeling, robotics and more); the Salk program offers wet lab, or hands-on work biological samples, chemicals and more), experiences.

The interns also hear from Salk employees who work outside the lab, like media specialists, financial managers, operations leaders and more.

“It’s a really unique environment here,” said Carlee Schulz, Salk’s community and engagement coordinator. “It’s very collaborative. … We have a lot to share.”

The interns are “high quality,” Schulz said, “but not in terms of experience they have from their other life.”

Entrance is based not on previous lab experience but on “the way that they can connect their own experiences to their lab interests,” she said, along with prerequisite classes.

Sophia Hu, a senior at Torrey Pines High School, “wasn’t really expecting anything” when she applied to the program, believing her electrical engineering goals to be misaligned with Salk’s focus on biological research.

Image courtesy of Salk Institute

“I was mostly interested in seeing how the science [at Salk] translates into technology and goes out into the market,” Hu said.

But once inside, Hu easily connected electrical engineering with biology, working in Sreekanth Chalasani’s lab on sonogenetics research. The team is trying to convert sonogenetics (using ultrasound to control cells) to brain-computer interface applications, which Hu found “very interesting” given her electrical engineering interests, she said.

Hu conducted “a lot of market research based on existing applications,” she said, learning the real world applications of science, technology and engineering and delving into the patenting process.

Grayson Blatt, a senior at The Bishop’s School in La Jolla, wanted the Salk internship for more personal reasons: Salk’s immunology department collaborated on a drug similar to one Blatt takes for the psoriatic arthritis he was diagnosed with as a child.

Image courtesy of Salk Institute

“It was really cool” for Blatt to work on the process to create drugs that “have actually affected my life,” he said.

During his internship, Blatt also found himself immersed in the intersection of law and technology, working on automating material transfer agreements, which help Salk scientists share their research with other institutions.

The agreements are “really important to Salk’s mission,” Blatt said, “because as a nonprofit, we aim to promote and share science for the public benefit [rather than] for commercial gain.”

The Salk educational philosophy

The high school scholar program is part of a larger summer outreach program including the Salk Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), in which 10 out of 570 undergraduate applicants are accepted for a nine-week program combining laboratory research, scientific mentorship and career development.

There’s also the Salk Edge Summer Program, during which PhD students receive specialized training in CRISPR gene editing, immune-cell bioinformatics and artificial intelligence for neuroscience, providing the candidates with hands-on training in research techniques, grant writing, networking and science communication.

Edge participants also receive a pilot grant to bring new technologies back to their home institutions, fostering connections with Salk scientists for future collaborations.

With these and other outreach initiatives, Salk aims to shape future scientists – and forthcoming scientific discovery, following founder and polio vaccine developer Jonas Salk’s belief that “our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.”

Giving back to the community through hosting “extremely bright and talented” high school students like Blatt and Hu is “one of the joys” at Salk, said summer scholar program mentor Ha Nguyen.

“It’s just amazing to see them flourish in an environment that is intimidating,” she said.

“We’re here to give Sophia and Grayson our best tidbits about life and science,” said mentor Sharon Kwan.

“They’re going to take it forward for us and for Salk and give all this knowledge to the next generation so we can create better drugs for humanity.”

Among the Salk stars

Both Blatt and Hu attest to Salk’s prowess in science and generosity in sharing that with rising scientists.

The work at Salk “is so cutting-edge that it makes me realize how special the research is here compared to the fundamentals that we learn” in school, Blatt said.

“Getting to be at such a professional and highly renowned place is just an incredible opportunity.”

Having “coffee chats” with various Salk scientists and real-time experience in labs is so important to a scientific education, Hu said. 

The work the interns performed also highlights the collaboration not only between Salk scientists and their future colleagues, but also among Salk teams and those of the other prominent biomedical institutions in La Jolla.

“One of the technologies Grayson was working on is a collaboration with Scripps, and we are filing a patent on this technology,” Kwan said.

“We just picked up the phone and said, ‘Hey, we’re filing a patent. Two of your inventors from Scripps are included on the patent. Can you work with us?’”

Emphasizing the ease of connection among local research organizations, Kwan said, “it’s great to have the scientists so keenly involved.”

Having completed the internship, Hu has excitedly redirected her focus to “specializing in biology in whatever career I decide to pursue in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math],” she said. “I can’t wait.”

Blatt shared a similar excitement, noting that after this intense exposure to Salk’s innovations, he’s hoping to pursue higher education in biology or biotechnology. 

The Salk Institute’s STEM education programs are made possible due to support from the Prebys Foundation.

To learn more, visit salk.edu.