By snoadmin
Most students reserve thinking about testes and ovaries for human sexuality class, late nights and weekends. But for Ashley Moran, it’s a daily issue – an issue that won her a $3,500 research grant.
Moran, a senior physiology major, was one of three students from Cal State Long Beach to be awarded the 2013 Howell-CSUPERB Research Scholar Awards presented by the CSU Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology (CSUPERB). Only 12 students out the 27 applicants from the entire CSU system were granted the award.
Senior Joshua Feng, a double major in biochemistry and philosophy, and junior Jessica Kyees, a chemistry and biochemistry major, were also honored during the 25th CSU Biotechnology Symposium, which took place during the first weekend of January in Anaheim.
Although Moran plans to use her degree in physiology to pursue a career in orthodontics, for now she is working with reproductive biology expert Dr. Kelly Young to better understand the reproductive cycles of Siberian hamsters.
Moran said that because hamsters’ ovaries shut down during the winter months and become active again during the spring and summer, they are considered seasonal breeders and are able to reproduce only at specific times of the year.
Moran said that she will focus her research on a function called ovarian recrudescence, which she said is not fully understood how it happens in the ovary itself. Her research will examine how the ovaries can become functional again with seasonal change.
In order understand how and why this process works, Moran has to analyze angiogenesis, or the formation of new red blood vessels, to determine whether certain genes known to be responsible for angiogenesis are also at work in the hamster’s ovaries.
Moran said her research is tedious and experiments usually take four to five hours to complete. The next phase of experiments can take up to eight hours and requires intense focus. She said this research is in addition to her three other jobs.
“I work at Bickerstaff on campus, which is with the Academic Center for Student Athletes, and I privately tutor another girl, and then I work at the kid zone at 24 Hour Fitness,” Moran said. “It’s a juggling act.”
Getting the award came as a complete shock to Moran and encouraged her to keep up with the research that she has been involved with for the past three semesters.
“I really honestly did not think I would get it at all,” Moran said. “My application I thought was terrible because it was in the middle of midterms and I was, like, super stressed. I thought, ‘I’m done, that’s it, I’ll be the last one to get it.'”
Students working in Young’s research lab have been among the recipients of the CSUPERB award for a number of years.
“The entire purpose of science is to share the research and build on it,” Young said. “I want them to be a part of that process because they are researchers themselves.”
