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Author: Sean Downey

State House Internship Connects Students Through Lessons in Legislation

Posted on October 5, 2022October 18, 2022 by Sean Downey
State House Internship Connects Students Through Lessons in Legislation

Rutgers-New Brunswick seniors Nina Gohel and James Cortes come from families with very little in common.

The daughter of immigrants of Indian descent, Gohel was raised by parents who never felt represented by our government and rarely participated in the electoral process.

The son of a single mother struggling on the edge of poverty, Cortes was acutely aware of the crucial role the government and programs such as NJ SNAP and Medicaid played in his life.

This summer, both Eagleton Undergraduate Associates’ paths converged at the New Jersey State House, where they helped craft bills that may become future state policy as part of their Rutgers Summer Service Internship (RSSI).

Launched this year by Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway, RSSI paired 100 Rutgers students with nonprofit and government organizations that best matched their field of study. Each internship came with a $5,000 stipend and a tuition free 3-credit course.

The paid internship was a game-changer for Cortes, a political science major, who is covering tuition through combination of Pell grants, federal loans and Rutgers aid. Prior to his RSSI experience in the New Jersey Senate Majority Office, Cortes worked 30 hours a week to cover his living expenses, which prevented him from taking advantage of the many unpaid internships available in his field.

“Political science is a very networking-heavy field. My parents didn’t go to college. We didn’t have any family connections,” said Cortes, 21, who lives in New Brunswick with his husband after getting married in July. “I thought this program would be a really good way for me to make those connections and put my foot in the door.”

Cortes said he has made the most of this opportunity, attending voting sessions, writing policy memos and summarizing bills for legislators to review. He was involved with legislation on gun safety and the new N.J. child tax credit passed in July. Having a hand in legislation that is positively affecting struggling families – like the one he was raised in – made his work all the more meaningful.

James Cortez
James Cortes said he has made the most of his RSSI opportunity, attending voting sessions, writing policy memos and summarizing bills for legislators to review.

“I was born with tethered spinal cord syndrome and needed a surgery in first grade that was covered by Medicaid. So, if it weren’t for the government, I might not be able to walk,” said Cortes, who was invited to stay on with the Senate Majority Office as a paid employee through the fall and plans to pursue a graduate program in public policy or international relations after graduating in May. “I decided to get into policy work because I knew how much the government helped me, and I wanted to be a part of the people who help the government do more.”

Gohel also sees civic engagement as the best way to make sure her voice – and those of other first-generation Americans – is heard.

Right after the 2016 presidential election, she said she faced different forms of discrimination from individuals who were more emboldened.

“As a woman of color, my belonging was questioned. I want the marginalized groups of my generation to never have to question their belonging in the U.S.,”​ said Gohel, 21, who is majoring in political science and planning and public policy.

Gohel threw herself into politics early on, participating in student government at her Mount Laurel middle school, serving as vice president of her high school and the New Jersey Association of Student Councils and becoming the first Asian-American and Pacific Islander woman to be elected student body vice president at Rutgers. Last summer, while interning with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of General Council, she helped reintroduce diversity, equity and inclusion staff trainings that were eliminated under the Trump administration.

Nina Gohel
As someone with potentially deadly food allergies, Nina Gohel poured herself into research that led to a bill modeled after an Edison ordinance that will better protect diners and reduce restaurant liability.

During her RSSI in the Office of Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald and Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt, Gohel brainstormed ideas for new legislation that could address the unmet needs of New Jersey residents. As someone with potentially deadly food allergies, she poured herself into research that led to a bill modeled after an Edison ordinance that will better protect diners and reduce restaurant liability.

“I know what it means to use an EpiPen. It’s a struggle to go out to restaurants and constantly worry about a life-threatening reaction,” said Gohel, whose allergies to tree nuts, shellfish and coconut once landed her in the ER after a restaurant mistakenly made her smoothie with almond milk. “The aim of this bill is to make sure restaurants provide a menu that will at least list the top eight allergens in their dishes to make New Jersey’s food environment safer for those with deadly food allergies.”

Being instrumental in the creation of legislation that is likely to be introduced to the New Jersey State Assembly this fall was inspiring for Gohel, who said she would like to participate in policy work at the local, state or national level after graduating in May.

“Our government needs to reflect all communities and people to properly represent the needs of our nation,” she said. “Now more than ever, public service is so essential to inspire the next generation to go forth and provide a brighter future, and I hope to be a part of that change.”

 

Story originally appeared in Rutgers Today.

Posted in Impact Stories

Rutgers Researchers Aim to Edit Proteins in Humans and Attain Insight into Illness

Posted on October 5, 2022October 18, 2022 by Sean Downey
Rutgers Researchers Aim to Edit Proteins in Humans and Attain Insight into Illness

Rutgers researchers are seeking to develop the technology to modify or edit protein molecules in the body—an advance that could spur major breakthroughs in human health. While such research is in its early phases, the Rutgers team has received support from a National Science Foundation (NSF) program that provides funding for boldly conceived research.

“This research, if successful, would build the technology to allow precision editing of proteins,” says Sagar Khare, the principal investigator on the project and a professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences. “The ability to edit proteins will widen our understanding of fundamental human biology as well as lay the foundation for therapies that could selectively destroy or correct defective proteins associated with disease.”

The research team, which includes faculty members from multiple disciplines on the New Brunswick and Camden campuses, recently received a three-year $1.5 million grant from the NSF Molecular Foundations for Biotechnology program for high-risk-high-payoff research that could set new directions in 21st-century science.

Rutgers SAS research team
Sagar D. Khare, Jean Baum, and Sijian Wang

Proteins are the workhorses of biology—responsible for making cells function in all living things. Everything from the immune system to respiration to thought and emotion are carried out by complex protein molecules, each with its own 3D shape that determines its function. Defective or misfolding proteins are associated with illnesses from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases to cancer.

“Pathologies often arise because protein function goes awry,” says Khare, who is also graduate program director at the Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine. “That is where we come in and try to fix function by selectively modifying particular types of protein.”

The goal, in short, is to build molecules, or “protein editors” in the lab that can recognize, attach to, and modify proteins in the body. That would require a high degree of precision: There are an estimated 10,000 to several million protein molecules in human cells. Accordingly, the project encompasses chemistry, biophysics, robotics, computer science, and statistics.

The team includes Jean Baum, a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in SAS, Adam Gormley, a professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering, Guillaume Lamoureux, professor of chemistry at Rutgers University-Camden, and Sijian Wang, professor of statistics in SAS.

The project would use machine learning, a subfield of artificial intelligence, to train computer models to recognize or predict complex patterns of protein shapes and sequences that can edit a given target protein—like building a lock around a key, says Khare. Modeled proteins would then be synthesized and tested in molecular science labs. The back-and-forth interplay between sophisticated data science and wet lab work would continue over the course of the project, producing increasingly precise models of editors.

The project comes amid the rise of gene editing technologies that are transforming science and medicine by allowing scientists to modify an organism’s genetic material.

Khare says protein editing is the next frontier. “There is no such technology for proteins. But we have some ideas, which makes us think we can do it. And the potential benefits are enormous.”

 

Story originally appeared in Rutgers SAS.

Posted in Foundation News, Impact Stories

Miller Center Secures Gift to Help Vulnerable Communities

Posted on December 22, 2020December 23, 2020 by Sean Downey
Miller Center Secures Gift to Help Vulnerable Communities

Rutgers’ Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience announced a $1.2 million gift that will support the center’s research and programming geared toward serving and securing vulnerable communities by improving relations with police. The gift was made by Paul S. Miller, the center’s founding donor and a longtime supporter of Rutgers University; with this gift, Miller’s donations to Rutgers approach $5 million.

“Protection of our most vulnerable populations has been one of the great challenges of this nation throughout its history,” said Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway. “Offering this safeguard is essential to the health of our society, and critical to the mission of Rutgers as an institution of public higher education. I want to thank Paul Miller for his recognition of the importance of this mission, and for his outstanding generosity to Rutgers through the years.”

“The events of this year—the disproportionate effects of the pandemic and the social unrest following the killing of George Floyd—have underscored for me the importance of reaching out to vulnerable populations both here and abroad to improve their security and their prospects,” said Paul S. Miller, founding donor of the Miller Center. “I am proud of the efforts the Miller Center has undertaken to date, as reflected in the new website, and believe those efforts position the center to take a prominent role in addressing the greatest public safety challenges of our time.”

“Over the past five years, the Miller Center has worked on the ground to improve the relationships of vulnerable populations with police and government officials from Brussels to Chicago to Whitefish, Montana,” said John J. Farmer, Jr., director of both the Miller Center and the Eagleton Institute of Politics. “We have established partnerships with universities from Sweden and the United Kingdom to New Jersey, and with worthy organizations like the International March of the Living and have engaged in cutting-edge research on the emergence of online hate and the effects of the COVID-19 on vulnerable populations. Our work, which is reflected on the website we launch today, is significant but just the beginning. These funds will enable the Miller Center to build on the real-world progress we have made in improving the status of vulnerable populations.”

The gift will help the Miller Center continue to expand its areas of research and impact. This year, the center conducted research about the security and safety of vulnerable communities, including:

  • Pandemic policies
  • Guidance and best practices for houses of worship to follow to mitigate the risk and spread of COVID-19
  • Social media mobilization of extremist groups
  • Police and law enforcement reform
  • A new report and action guide to provide vulnerable communities and houses of worship policies and practices to enhance the security and safety of their communities during the holiday season

This week, the Miller Center also launched its new redesigned website which features an online library that houses the center’s research and published writings and provides user-friendly ways students, researchers, and the public can learn more about the center’s work and upcoming programming.

The Miller Center, affiliated with Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics and Rutgers Law School, works with vulnerable communities around the world to enhance their safety and standing in society by improving their relationships with law enforcement, with other government agencies and with other vulnerable communities.

Posted in Impact Stories, Press ReleaseLeave a Comment on Miller Center Secures Gift to Help Vulnerable Communities
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