BioE professor and lab provide undergraduate research opportunities

Undergraduate research played a big role career of bioengineering associate professor Sheng Zhong, and his Systems Biology Lab at the Institute of Genomic Research is providing the same opportunities that he took advantage of when he was an undergraduate student.

“My own career started like that,” Zhong said. “My undergraduate major was mathematics, but what I’m working on now is molecular biology. It was my undergraduate work that got me started doing genomics and eventually biology.”

Zhong's lab is one of many research opportunities that undergraduate students can take advantage of within the College of Engineering, with around a handful of undergraduate students working in the lab every year.

“I suspect undergraduate research can change a career,” Zhong said.

For example, Meagan Musselman, a senior in bioengineering who worked on directed differentiation of embryonic stem cells in Zhong's lab, has already co-authored a paper published in Cell, a top science journal. She also won a gold medal in 2010 iGEM competition, as the leader of UIUC experimental team.

Addison Dynek, a senior in computer science, joined Zhong’s lab last year to work on parallel computing to make algorithms run faster, and has since produced a prototype.

“He approached me about possibly doing some research, so I asked him to come in to talk,” Zhong said. “We looked at his strengths and what he was interested in, and I asked him if he could think of any way to parallelize the process.”

While it currently sometimes takes months to compute some models and algorithms used in the lab, Dynek’s prototype drastically reduces the time frame.

“I was thinking that there would be a simple way of doing it, but Addison kept telling that we should go into the program and resign everything in the architecture,” Zhong said. “I said, ‘Wow, that doesn’t sound like it’d be trivial at all,” but he kept tell me that we can do this.”

And though the prototype still needs quite a few test runs before it is introduced in the lab, Zhong is already excited about the potential impact of Dynek’s prototype.

“This is something that I think will have tremendous value,” Zhong said.

Working in Zhong’s lab has provided the change of pace from academics that Dynek and other undergraduates seek on campus.

“School has always told me what to do and what results to provide,” Dynek said. “But research allows it to be your own, and it will depend on your drive to find solutions. No one will be there saying, ‘Hey, you haven’t put in enough work.’”

Zhong also noted the work of Darina Mcdee, a senior in molecular and cellular biology as an example of how important undergraduate students can be in a research lab.

“When she came she didn’t know what research was like, but now she has gradually become a pivotal person in the lab.” Zhong said. “She is almost involved in nearly every project. She’s as important as our graduate students.”

In the lab, Mcdee has been working on differentiating pluripotent cells into pancreatic precursor cells.

“You read about this type of work in a paper, and you think it’s really cool, and being able to do it myself as an undergrad has been an incredible experience,” McDee said. “It changes the way you see science.”

Dynek, who is interested in attending graduate school in the future, said the research set up is very similar to masters and PhD programs, as he works exclusively with graduate students.

“If you want to get a PhD, or even most master programs, you will be doing research,” Dynek said. “What I’m doing may not be as intense, but this is a great test for graduate school in the future to see if I like the atmosphere.”

But undergraduate research is more than just a glimpse in what graduate school may entail, as undergraduate students are expected to contribute just like graduate student researchers. Undergraduate students like Dynek and Mcdee regularly meet with Zhong to discuss progress and present their findings in group meetings.

“The first time we meet with you, we’re going to say very explicitly that this is work, not study,” Zhong said. “Everything that you do, we will expect you to produce and contribute something to other people.”

Zhong, who is active in the College of Engineering’s recruiting efforts for graduate students, said that undergraduate research is “critical” for top graduate engineering schools like the University of Illinois.

“We can learn about your intellectual depth and what you have really thought about in the past through your undergraduate research,” Zhong said. “Everybody can get and should get this type of preparation. I think that weighs a lot, especially in interviews.”
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Contact: Sheng Zhong, Department of Bioengineering, 217/265-6589.

Writer Jay Lee, Engineering Communications Office.

Photographer: L. Brian Stauffer

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.