Journee Glasby wanted to make sure she was getting everything just right, so she glanced down at her notes before beginning her description of her summer research at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.
The rising senior at University City High School was one of seven area students taking part in the Collaborative Laboratory Internships and Mentorship Blueprint, more commonly known as the CLIMB program. She wound up working in the lab of Curators’ Distinguished Professor Michael Nichols, who studies Alzheimer’s disease and its mechanisms as a member of UMSL’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
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“It’s a lot of information to retain, but basically, it’s a project specifically focusing on Alzheimer’s and the protein within Alzheimer’s which is called amyloid-β protein,” Glasby said. “The question I’m trying to answer is: ‘Is there any leaky expression?’”
She went on to explain that a leaky expression of the protein refers to production that occurs before its deliberate induction. The answer will influence how the Nichols’ lab conducts future experiments to understand how the disease develops.
During her six-week stint in Nichols’ lab, Glasby gained experience with techniques such as centrifuging, streaking plates and chromatography to separate and isolate the components she was interested in.
“There were a lot of words that were kind of confusing to me at first, but I’ve been really busy and really hands-on,” said Glasby, who hopes it will give her a leg up in her high school chemistry course this fall.
CLIMB was created to provide high school students with an immersive scientific experience working in a UMSL research lab, where they learn technical skills and are mentored by faculty members and graduate students. It is meant to expose them to opportunities they might not otherwise have and unlock doorways that lead into STEM, higher education and professional careers.
“This is an accessible project,” said Lon Chubiz, an associate professor of biology who co-led the program this year with Professor Bethany Zolman and has been involved in its leadership since 2023. “One of the foundations of this program is that this is a paid internship program. It’s a departure from a lot of other summer programming models that exist where families have to pay for their children to participate. Instead, we flip that model around, and I think it’s opened the doors to a lot of young people being able to come and work with us that might have chosen to do other things during the summer.”
This summer marked CLIMB’s 12th year of existence. Faculty members Chubiz, Zolman, Blaine Marchant, Michi Tobler and Xuemin “Sam” Wang from the Department of Biology and Nichols, Stephen Holmes and Eike Bauer from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry all hosted interns in their labs. The program received funding this year from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the Trio Foundation of St. Louis and private donors.
The program was founded in 2015 by Professor Emerita Patricia Parker in partnership with Rhonda Key and Miranda Ming, who were then both administrators in the Jennings School District. It was originally created for students at Jennings Senior High School but has since expanded to serve students from the University City, Ritenour, Riverview Gardens and Hazelwood school districts. More than 120 high school students have worked as interns since its beginning.
Six of this year’s seven interns were students at Hazelwood East High School, including Annabelle Epley, who earned her high school diploma along with her associate degree in May through a dual-enrollment program with St. Louis Community College. Epley worked in a lab led by Tobler, the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor in Zoological Studies, and she conducted research with livebearer fish that originated from different extreme environments. She was specifically tasked with collecting data on Mexican tetra, or blind cave fish, including the size of a fish’s pelvic fins and mouths.
Epley tested the hypotheses that the male fish living in cave conditions would have larger pelvic fins to help them navigate through the water and find mates and that all cave fish would have larger mouths to collect food in the darkness compared to their surface counterparts. She also learned how to measure the water content in each fish’s tank, testing for hardness, alkalinity and pH level to ensure that the fish were living in a healthy environment.
She appreciated the chance to engage in hands-on learning.
“This is probably not the field I would go into,” said Epley, who aspires to become a physical therapist. “But this was a beneficial experience for me. I think it was good research experience and good to work with the other students.”
The interns also gained exposure to potential careers through a series of field trips each Friday during the program. They met with professional scientists at the Danforth Plant Science Center, MilliporeSigma, Pfizer and the Webster Groves Nature Study Society. They also made a trip to the Saint Louis Zoo, where Epley got to hold a boa constrictor, learn about the zoo’s Hellbender conservation efforts and get a behind-the-scenes view of polar bear Kallu.
The program concluded on July 10 with a reception in Benton Hall. Family members, friends, high school teachers and administrators, representatives of the program funders, and faculty and graduate mentors all gathered to hear presentations from Glasby, Epley and fellow interns Leala Gaines, Imani Evans, Simon Mwangi, Nikia Houghton and Charlie Saunders about their individual research projects.
Mwangi, who spent his summer in Holmes’ lab learning about different processes to create molecule-based devices using organometallic synthesis, echoed a number of the other students in describing the impact the program had on him.
“The number of things that I’ve learned here across these last few weeks is absolutely mind-blowing,” he said. “I truly wish this program all the best. I would like to acknowledge all these people, including my lab mentors, program coordinators, and all my peers that I’ve interacted with. They’re all absolutely amazing people.”
