Fresh Faces, Fresh Minds

Twenty-four high-school students, seven high school teachers, and six college students participated in the eight-week Summer Research Internship Program this year, working side-by-side with scientists conducting biomedical research in Scripps Research labs.

Michael Comstock (left, shown here with Ph.D. candidate Ryan Cirz), a June graduate of the University of San Diego High School who will attend Cal Tech this fall, made an impression on in the Romesberg lab during his internship. As part of a project on the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, Comstock wrote a sophisticated evolutionary algorithm to simulate bacterial populations and test how different mutation rates affect population fitness.