Spring 2025 CCOP-CORE Midsession Presentations: Interns Share Their First Steps Into Research
- ccopstanford
- May 12
- 4 min read
Updated: May 12
Five weeks into the Spring 2025 session, interns in the Stanford Community College Outreach Program (CCOP) gathered for their Midsession Presentations, sharing what they’ve been working on in their labs so far. For many, this is their very first time doing research. Their talks were full of curiosity, energy, and thoughtful questions about the science they’re just starting to explore. Each intern brought their own perspective to the work, as well as giving us a look into the diverse and exciting projects happening across Stanford’s research labs.
Muzhda Mehrzad (Mentor: Daisy O'Mahoney, Yuri Suzuki Lab)
Muzhda Mehrzad, from Mission College, is exploring spintronics, a promising alternative to conventional electronics. Her project, Magnetic Characterization of LAFO Thin Films, focuses on optimizing lithium aluminum ferrite (LAFO) films for improved magnetic properties. Spintronics relies on manipulating the spin of electrons, rather than their charge, offering potential for faster, more energy-efficient devices. Muzhda explained that mRAM, the spintronic counterpart to conventional RAM, could function without external power. She is specifically testing how different amounts of aluminum affect magnetic saturation, magnetic anisotropy, and saturation field, using thin-film materials designed for next-generation electronics.
Veronica Johnson (Mentor: Dr. Aleena Patel, Alistair Boettiger Lab)
Veronica Johnson, from Skyline College, is investigating how DNA is regulated by a protein called cohesin. Using fruit flies as a model organism, Veronica employed auxin-induced degradation (AID) to selectively degrade cohesin, then dissected and cryosectioned fly brains for analysis. She used fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to visualize the 3D structure of the genome. Her findings may help reveal how genome architecture is maintained and what happens when it's disrupted. During the Q&A, Veronica expressed interest in studying how different levels of cohesin in parents might influence their offspring’s genome structure.
Vanshika Sharma (Mentor: Faith Masong, Ang Lab)
Vanshika Sharma’s work centers on generating functional liver cells from stem cells, a key step in creating lab-grown organs for transplantation or drug testing. She is particularly focused on blood clotting factors, which are essential for safe and functional liver tissue. Working with the Ang Lab, she’s validating the expression of these proteins and refining methods to ensure the engineered hepatocytes behave like real liver cells. Her research could contribute to future therapies for liver failure and chronic liver disease.
Sane Lann Phyo (Mentor: Changwan Chen, Will Allen Lab)
Sane Lann Phyo is investigating how mice learn and remember as they navigate mazes. After the mice complete behavioral tasks, she performs brain dissections to identify any structural changes associated with learning. In just a few weeks, Sane has learned techniques like perfusion and dissection and her project will combine behavior and brain anatomy.
James Zin (Kaung Khant Zin) (Mentor: Masato Ogishi, Chris Garcia Lab)
James Zin is studying immune regulation and how regulatory T cells (Tregs) can be regulated to treat disease. His project focuses on the FOXP3 protein, which maintains Treg identity. By altering FOXP3 stability, Tregs can be converted into effector T cells. This mechanism could be harnessed to suppress immune responses in autoimmune disease or enhance them in cancer treatment. His project focuses on how to control the immune system by finding the right balance between activating it to fight cancer and suppressing it to prevent autoimmune disease.
Nora Carlos (Mentor: Maria Nguyen, FUNR Lab)
Nora Carlos is working with Salpingoeca rosetta, a species of choanoflagellates, a single-celled organism closely related to animals. Despite being unicellular, S. rosetta can form rosette-like colonies that behave similarly to early multicellular organisms. In the FUNR Lab, Nora is studying how the Src-Csk protein signaling axis affects colony formation. By introducing various proteins into S. rosetta, she aims to identify those that interact with Src adaptors and help uncover the origins of multicellular organisms.
Returning Interns: Kyi Lei Aye and Hannah Shong
Two returning CCOP students also presented updates on their ongoing research.
Kyi Lei Aye, working in the Winetraub Lab, is testing whether virtual biopsies can replace traditional, invasive procedures. She is using optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging and applying large language models (LLMs) and foundation models trained on pathology data to generate H&E-like virtual images. Her work could make cancer diagnostics less invasive and more accessible.
Hannah Shong, mentored by Elisa Visher in the Petrov/Sherlock Labs, is using yeast to explore how environmental conditions shape evolution. Her project investigates how tradeoffs emerge as yeast adapt to carbon or nitrogen limited environments. She also developed a refined barcoding method to track evolutionary changes across different growth conditions, helping to uncover the dynamics between generalists and specialists in microbial populations.
The Midsession Presentations were a reminder of just how much the interns have done in only five weeks. Most of them came into this internship with no research experience, and now they’re running experiments, analyzing data, and asking real scientific questions. Each project is different, but what they all have in common is how quickly the interns have learned to think like researchers. It’s been exciting to watch them figure things out in the lab, and we’re looking forward to seeing where their projects go from here.
- Emilie
