As an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Amanda Herzog worked in a number of different research laboratories, where she studied everything from cartilage growth to pediatric tonsillectomy techniques to fruit fly behavior. So, when she started medical school at UW's School of Medicine and Public Health in 2007, she figured she'd keep up with her research activities. Yet, other than a three-month stint assisting oncologist Mark Albertini in his melanoma lab for a summer research program between her first and second years, Herzog has struggled to fit research into her schedule. “I had to devote my time to my studies,” she says.
Herzog's passion for lab work inspired her to apply for a unique research program funded jointly by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). She succeeded and became one of the 42 students chosen from hundreds of applicants for the program's 2010–2011 academic year. As an HHMI-NIH Research Scholar, she was able to defer her third year of medical school and instead study an experimental head and neck cancer drug in cellular and animal models at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland.
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