Rider Softball Player Wins Fellowship
LAWRENCEVILLE?Inside the laboratories of the second floor of Science and Technology Building, research is being conducted, the sort that could someday affect how cancer is treated and how the United States handles bioterrorism scares.
For the past two years, junior Megan Kozlowski, a junior Biology major and captain of the Rider University softball team, has been conducting research to see if a particular drug could help slow down a hyper-immune system.
Kozlowski plans to continue her research this summer on the Lawrenceville campus as she recently received an American Society for Microbiology Undergraduate Research Fellowship, an award that is reserved for the nation's best and brightest rising young scientists, and comes with a generous $5,000 stipend to support research in microbiology.
“The fellowship is prestigious because only 10 to 15 percent of applications are awarded annually,” explained Dr. Kelly Bidle, associate professor of Biology.
More than 70 undergraduate students from across the nation apply for the fellowship each year.
Kozlowski has been studying immune system regulation, under the supervision of Dr. James Riggs, professor of Biology. “While cancer suppresses the immune system, arthritis and Type 1 Diabetes cause a hyper-immune system,” explained Riggs.
“Too much or too little is not good,” Riggs said. “An overactive immune system is dangerous.”
In 2005, while Riggs was working at Bristol-Myers Squibb, the company launched an arthritis drug, Orencia, which helps slow overactive immune system. Riggs wondered if this drug could be used for other purposes, since hyper-immune systems could also be triggered by another source. For example, a terrorist could contaminate food sold in a grocery store, which could then cause a consumer's immune system to overreact, he explained. That's where Kozlowski's research comes in. She is studying how this anti-inflammatory arthritis drug might be used to control an immune system that is hyper activated by a potential bioterror agent.
“Megan came to the biology program highly qualified,” said Riggs, who is familiar with the caliber of students who apply for ASM fellowships because he has been reviewing ASM applications for the past eight years. “She is able to balance a crazy schedule of her commitments as a Division I softball catcher concurrent with a rigorous biology curriculum. She already has coauthored a paper with my group.”
Kozlowski started all 48 games for the Broncs this past season and is a veteran of 129 games as a three-year letterwinner.
Kozlowski will present her research at the ASM Conference in San Diego next May. Both Bidle and Riggs agree that having an ASM Fellowship on her r?sum?s and her lab experience will give Kozlowski a competitive advantage when she applies to medical schools and jobs in the field.
“This is what Rider does really well. Some of our students can get going in the lab really early in their college career,” Riggs concluded.
Kozlowski was recently named to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference All-Academic team for the second time and has a 3.77 grade point average.
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Additional information provided by Rider NewsWire and Michele Angermiller, Times of Trenton / nj.com
