Royce Harner was accepted to participate in a Summer undergraduate research fellowship program and continue working in the Patel Lab! He will be participating in the Amgen Scholars Program, which aims to provide undergraduates from across the country access to participate in hands-on research at some of the best universities in the country. It is a highly competitive program, with the Berkeley program accepting only 28 applicants — only 2 being Berkeley students. The Amgen program hopes to inspire and foster careers in science and biotechnology for undergraduates interested in pursuing PhD or MD/PhD programs. For ten weeks, he will take on an independent research project working full-time As part of the fellowship, he will also travel to the Amgen Scholars National Symposium at UCLA where he will meet with other future scientists to discuss and learn about the projects others have taken on in biotechnology. The program is present on ten different campuses, with the Berkeley program continually ranked the best producing scholars that go on to receive further degrees in chemical biology, bioengineering, chemistry and other biological sciences. His research will culminate in a poster presentation where he will discuss his research.

Basically, Royce gets to continue being part of the awesomeness that is the Patel Lab for another Summer. He will be continuing to work with his little minions, Parhyale hawaiensis, working toward further elucidation of the mechanisms that regulate germline regeneration. He will continue to work with his mentor Angela and Nipam to develop an independent project. And who knows, he may even finally have to lead group meeting one of these weeks. Royce could not be more excited for this opportunity to continue work with the best lab on campus while being funded by a ridiculously awesome program.