2010 Carolyn E. Reed Pre-Medical Honors Thesis Fellowship Awarded
Contact: Charlie Slavin, Dean of the Honors College, 207.581.3262
Emily Cain, Coordinator of Advancement, Honors College, 207.581.3308
ORONO — University of Maine Honors College student, Zachery Garcia, a member of the Class of 2011, has been selected to receive the 2010 Carolyn E. Reed Pre-Medical Honors Thesis Fellowship. This Fellowship will provide Garcia with $2,500 to support him while working on this Honors thesis in biology this academic year.
Zachery Garcia is a biology major with minors in neuroscience, chemistry, and psychology. He is from Brunswick, Maine and attended high school at North Yarmouth Academy. Garcia’s’s Honors thesis focuses on the endocrine disrupting chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) and its impact on development of the cardiac system and aspects of the reproductive system in Drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as fruit flies. BPA is used widely in plastic products like water bottles and canned foods and drinks because it is extremely durable, able to withstand high heat, and has low electrical conductivity. This makes exposure to BPA very common, and research like Garcia’s will help to build understanding of the impact of this exposure on animals. UMaine Professor of Zoology, Harold “Dusty” Dowse is Garcia’s adviser.
“With the hopes of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon, I think it is important to understanding how the heart works and how its development can be affected by a plethora of chemicals that can have long lasting and devastating effects on the fitness of the animal and its offspring,” Garcia says in explaining why he chose this topic. “By better understanding how it is affected in this model organism, I hope to better understand overall function of the heart, its development, and pathologies that arise in development.”
Garcia plans to begin attending medical school in Fall, 2011. He believes that hands- on medicine is best practiced when connected with research, and is doing his Honors thesis to get started down that path.
The Carolyn E. Reed Pre-Medical Thesis Fellowship is intended to encourage students to investigate and understand the rigorous academic path to a career in medicine, and is awarded annually to a student in the Honors College at the University of Maine whose undergraduate thesis research resembles the passion for and dedication to medicine evident in the work and career of Dr. Carolyn E. Reed. Fellows are devoted to improving the world through active research and establishing an academic background that will enable them to become world-class physicians. Their research is intended to make a positive difference in the lives of others both through their discoveries and as a stepping stone to their future careers.
Carolyn E. Reed, M.D. ’72 graduated from the University of Maine with a degree in Chemistry and from the Honors Program. She received her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine in 1977. Dr. Reed has been at the Medical University of South Carolina since 1985, and currently is Professor of Surgery; Chief, Section of General Thoracic Surgery; Deputy Director of Clinical Affairs, Hollings Cancer Center; and holds the Alice Ruth Reeves Folk Endowed Chair of Clinical Oncology.