{"id":2862,"date":"2017-05-22T12:36:34","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T19:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/?p=2862"},"modified":"2025-02-27T13:33:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T21:33:44","slug":"training-our-students-for-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/2017\/05\/22\/training-our-students-for-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Training our Students for Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Web Extra<\/span><\/p>\n

by Marcia Hill Gossard \u201999, \u201904 Ph.D. | Photos by Henry Moore Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n

Keesha Matz wants to understand some of the world\u2019s deadliest viruses. Raised in Chehalis, Washington, her love for microbiology began in a molecular genetics high school class taught by WSU alumnus Henri Weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe class gave me a real feel for research, which I think is unique for a high school class,\u201d says Matz.<\/p>\n

That experience inspired her to apply to the WSU School of Molecular Bioscience\u2019s STARS program<\/a>. Students Targeted toward Advanced Research Studies, or STARS, accelerates learning and provides hands-on research experience. \u201cThey help you get into a research lab right away,\u201d she says. For Matz, it meant that she could spend the summers after her freshman and sophomore years conducting research instead of going back home to get a job.<\/p>\n

Her first experience in a research lab was with Dr. Hector Aguilar-Carre\u00f1o in the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health<\/a> who studies the Nipah virus. First discovered in 1999 in Malaysia and Singapore, the deadly virus was the subject of the 2011 film, Contagion, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. In Aguilar-Carre\u00f1o\u2019s lab, she studied how proteins of the virus can spread the disease throughout the body. She also studied Lyme disease with Dr. Troy Bankhead, who has a joint appointment in the Allen School and the Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology department. She is currently conducting research on the Nipah virus with Dr. Alan Goodman in the School of Molecular Biosciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am able to directly apply what I learned in Dr. Aguilar-Carre\u00f1o\u2019s lab in Dr. Goodman\u2019s lab,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In Goodman\u2019s lab, rather than trying to understand how the virus spreads throughout the body, they want to know how the virus can evade the body\u2019s innate immune response. When a virus enters the body, the immune system typically responds to the foreign invader. But with the Nipah virus, certain proteins signal the body to decrease its immune response.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeesha is not afraid to take on new, large-scale, challenging experiments,\u201d says Goodman. \u201cShe carefully plans every step beforehand to make sure that the experiments are carried out properly and that she can perform them independently.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer as an undergraduate research fellow at Mayo Clinic, Matz will study a protein of the Ebola virus that also evades the antiviral response at the cellular level, similar to the work she had done at WSU.<\/p>\n

For Matz, the support she has received at WSU to pursue research opportunities and apply for scholarships has made a difference in her academic success. She is one of only 240 students nationwide to receive the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships for 2017\u201318. She also received two scholarships through the School of Molecular Biosciences<\/a>\u2014the Alice Lloyd Diers and William E. Diers Microbiology Student Endowment Scholarship<\/a> in 2016 and the Walter L. & Pauline W. Harris Microbiology Endowment Scholarship<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a huge honor to be awarded a national scholarship,\u201d says Matz, who has maintained nearly a 4.0 GPA while working in the research labs. \u201cBeing selected for these scholarships has allowed me to focus more on academics and research and take advantage of other opportunities. It feels like a big pat on the back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matz will graduate in the spring of 2018 with a bachelor of science degree in microbiology. From there she plans to go to graduate school. Berkeley, Mayo Clinic, and Cornell are places she is considering applying to, but the dream is Stanford. \u201cYou have to try,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Thinking about the future, Matz would eventually like to work in government lab or private industry conducting medical research that can be used to design treatments for infectious diseases, like Nipah. \u201cI would like to be in an organization that works globally, such as the World Health Organization,\u201d she says. She also wants to support the university that has given her so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the future, I definitely want to give back, because I know how much it means to students,\u201d she says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be where I am today without the mentoring I\u2019ve had at WSU.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keesha Matz wants to understand some of the world\u2019s deadliest viruses. Raised in Chehalis, Washington, her love for microbiology began in a molecular genetics high school class taught by WSU alumnus Henri Weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe class gave me a real feel for research, which I think is unique for a high school class,\u201d says Matz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1015,"featured_media":2864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":[]},"categories":[541,514],"tags":[619,539,614,548],"wsuwp_university_location":[332],"wsuwp_university_org":[425],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1015"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2862"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3971,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions\/3971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2862"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=2862"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=2862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}