University of Arizona BIO5 Institute

What happens when you trust high school students with real research?

For 20 years, KEYS Research Internship faculty mentors have welcomed Arizona high school students into their laboratories, and discovered they're ready to contribute from day one.

Many interns return as undergraduate researchers, graduate students and future colleagues, proving that seven weeks can be the start of something much bigger.

Link in comments to meet four faculty mentors who are helping build Arizona's next generation research workforce.

BIO5 member Maya Kaelberer is exploring how the gut communicates with the brain to influence food choices and healthy eating. Her research, supported by a Pew Biomedical Scholar award, could reshape how scientists understand nutrition and health.

"The gut sense is probably our oldest sense, because initially we were just wandering guts — but we know very little about how those signals are being filtered and how they are driving our decisions. I think it's crazy that we haven't figured this out yet," she said. "There are so many questions and so many directions you can take this work. This is just such a cool field to be in."

Read more: https://bit.ly/4vRZOET

They came to learn. They left contributing to research. 🔬

This summer, 58 Arizona high school students joined University of Arizona research labs through the BIO5 Institute's KEYS Research Internship tackling questions in food safety, cancer biology, artificial intelligence, genetics, quantum physics and more.

As KEYS celebrates its 20th anniversary, meet seven interns whose stories show what happens when students are trusted with meaningful research from day one.

Link in comments to read their stories.