Wharton Summer Undergraduate Research Program

Description

• The Program will begin on May 26 and conclude on July 31.
• Students are expected devote 40 hrs per week for the duration of the 10 weeks.
• The work schedule will coincide with normal business hours (roughly 7:30am-5:30pm, Mon-Fri) as mutually agreed upon by the student and mentor.
• Students may not work more than 8 hrs in a single day or more than 40 hrs in a single week in accordance with Student Employment Policies. Lunch time is unpaid and excluded from the 8 hrs.
• Students will be hired as hourly employees at a rate of $15/hr. Thus, the maximum stipend will be $6,000 (pre-tax) for 10 weeks of 40 hrs before accounting for holidays.
• Project mentors will do their best to accommodate reasonable requests for time off for vacations and other summer activities (maximum 5 days off over the 10 weeks, excluding sick days). These requests must be communicated to mentors in writing at least 2 weeks in advance (or prior to the start of the Program, if possible) and are subject to the discretion of each mentor.
• Juneteenth (June 19) and Independence Day (observed July 3) are University Holidays. Mentors will also accommodate any Religious Holidays and Observances.
• Students will not log hours or receive pay for sick days, time off, or Holidays.
• As this is a full-time commitment, students may not hold other jobs or take courses that overlap with a standard workday.
• Students must present a poster on their research project at the undergraduate research symposium (tentatively July 30).
• Students must complete all required trainings as dictated by the mentor and project needs in a timely manner such that the research work may commence. This may include Laboratory Safety, Biological Safety, and Human Subjects training.

2026 Wharton Project Descriptions

Clinical research in pediatric obesity and adult malnutrition
Dr. Rosanna Watowicz and Dr. Rosa Hand

The student selected for this project will split their time working with Dr. Watowicz and Dr. Hand. The objective of Dr. Watowicz’s study is to assess dietary intake for adolescents following initiation of antiobesity medication. Prescription of antiobesity medications, including GLP-1 receptor agonists, is increasing rapidly, however there is no existing published data on the effects of antiobesity medications on dietary intake. This is of particular concern for adolescents who are in a nutritionally vulnerable developmental stage due to rapid growth and brain development. We will recruit patients from the Adolescent Clinic at Rainbow Babies and Children who have been prescribed an antiobesity medication. We will collect 24-hour dietary recall data, using the validated multiple pass approach, at baseline and one month following initiation.

The objectives of Dr. Hand’s study are to assess prevalence and risk factors for adult malnutrition in an inpatient setting, as part of an international initiative, nutritionDay, and to measure medical students’ attitudes towards multidisciplinary malnutrition diagnosis after they participate in data collection for this study.  The Wharton student could participate in both forms of data collection.

Although the objectives of the two studies differ, the selected student will learn and apply similar research skills across the two projects. Both studies will be carried out in collaboration with UH partners. The student will work on protocol development, the regulatory process, informed consent, participant recruitment, nutrition-related data collection, survey methods, and quantitative data analysis. The student may work on other education evaluation related research conducted by Drs. Hand and Watowicz as time allows.  These are excellent projects for pre-health students, particularly those planning to pursue the RD credential.  They will develop communication skills to professional and lay audiences.

15-Prostaglandin Dehydrogenase: A Therapeutic Target for Tissue Repair
Dr. Janna Kiselar

Inhibiting the prostaglandin-degrading enzyme 15-PGDH with small molecules like SW209415 increases tissue-regenerative PGE2 levels, showing promise for treating 15-PGDH responsive diseases (Hu B, et al., 2022). In collaboration with Dr. Markowitz, using single-residue hydroxyl radical footprinting (XFP), we compared changes in oxidative labeling of NADH-15-PGDH with -/+ SW209415 to characterize its binding pocket on 15-PGDH. After overcoming a year of method development challenges, a cryo-EM structure of the SW209415 binding pocket on NADH-15-PGDH has been obtained by Drs. Taylor and Markowitz. Cryo-EM and XFP data together, characterize the SW209415 binding on 15-PGDH causing a "lid" domain (α10-α12), residues F185 and Y217, to close around the inhibitor, trapping the drug (Huang W