Generating Scientists and Regenerating Lungs

For graduating BBS PhD student Irene Wong, training young researchers is as important as investigating respiratory diseases.

It was a simple online search for “science internships, Boston” that set Irene Wong on a 10-year path from her hometown of Malden, Massachusetts, across the Charles River to Harvard Medical School, where she would one day complete a PhD in biological and biomedical sciences.

Her search turned up a Harvard-affiliated summer research program called CURE, aimed at high school and college students from groups underrepresented in science. From there, Wong pursued one research opportunity after another in the Harvard sphere — science-flavored breadcrumbs that slowly but surely led her to earn a PhD from the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in an HMS lab. Read More.