Explore Scientific Research Careers
Sanford Research offers the Sanford Program for Undergraduate Research (SPUR), which provides opportunities for undergraduate students interested in research careers to participate in research.
This dynamic summer program allows you to apply your classroom knowledge by working in a laboratory under the supervision of a principal investigator and interacting with research teams that include graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
In addition to obtaining research experience in state-of-the-art facilities, you will attend weekly career and professional development workshops, as well as build your presentation and communication skills through scientific presentations. You will also benefit from the collegial and interactive research environment and enjoy the social community in Sioux Falls, a small city with an abundance of dining, shopping, sporting events and entertainment.
Summer Program Tracks
REU Site in Cellular and Molecular Biology:这个国家科学基金会(NSF)资助的机会提供基础细胞和分子生物学的研究经验。学生从事信号转导、细胞内运输、细胞增殖和分化、细胞器功能和发育等领域的前沿研究。
Pediatric Biomedical Research Program:This National Institutes of Health (NIH) R25-funded opportunity provides research experience in biomedical areas directly and broadly related to pediatric health and disease. Projects range from basic studies of underlying disease mechanisms to translational research aimed at developing novel disease therapies.
Summer Program Details
- The SPUR program schedule is 10 weeks from June 6 through August 12, 2022. You must commit to working the entire ten weeks and participate in all program workshops.
- You will work under the direct supervision of a Sanford Research mentor as part of the mentor’s research team.
- 您将在课程开始时准备并提交一份简短的项目提案，并在课程结束时在研讨会上提交一份描述您研究成果的海报。
- You will attend an introductory laboratory methods boot camp and weekly workshops geared toward career preparation and professional development, including topics such as ethics in research, science career opportunities and applying to graduate school.
- You will have the opportunity to attend regular research seminars and data clubs.
- 你将参与推广活动，把科学带到当地社区。
- We organize social activities to enable casual interaction with other participants and mentors.
- 我们为每个学生提供5750美元的教育津贴。
- You can live free-of-charge on the Augustana University campus in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
- Free daily shuttle is offered to students who do not have their own transportation.
Student Eligibility
任何主修生命科学或其他STEM领域的大学生都有资格申请SPUR计划。在申请的时候，你应该是大一、大二或大三的学生，应该对研究和研究生院的就业机会感兴趣。
You are encouraged to apply if you attend an institution that does not have substantial research opportunities or are underrepresented in the biological sciences. This includes underrepresented minorities, first-generation college students, individuals from lower-income backgrounds or rural communities, students with disabilities and veterans or members of the Armed Services.
How to Apply
Please click on the link in the blue box to complete the common application for the SPUR program. In addition to the online application, all applicants must request the following to complete their application:
- An official or unofficial transcript from each college the applicant has attended or taken college-level courses.
- Two letters of recommendation, at least one of which must be from a college professor. Letters of recommendation sent via email must be sent from the author's email.
在收到申请、推荐信及成绩单后，申请才会被视为完成。Transcripts and letters of recommendation can beemailedor mailed to:
Sanford Research
Attn: Tamara Ledeboer, Route 5031
2301 East 60th Street North
Sioux Falls, SD 57104
The application deadline is Monday, January 31st. All materials must be received by the deadline. Late applications will not be considered.
Program Application:即日起申请至2022年1月31日。For questions about the program or the application process or for inquiries about research during the academic year, pleaseemailor call(605) 312-6590.
Student Success Stories
Meet Morgan Seffrood
Morgan always wanted a career in science but wasn’t sure about research. SPUR changed her outlook and gave her experiences unlike anything she’d done before.
Meet Shantelia Shook
Some of Shantelia’s family members have battled cancer, inspiring her to do her part in fighting the disease. The SPUR program gave her a good start.
Meet Katie Finnegan
Katie’s family health history and her own type 1 diabetes diagnosis piqued her interest in research. The SPUR program helped her live out her passion.
Meet Alli Pittman
Alli loves that every day in a research lab promises new challenges and opportunities. SPUR was the perfect fit for her to pursue her interests and career goals.
Meet Mason Schmidt
The SPUR program was the perfect fit for Mason as it offered the full lab experience, giving him 10 weeks of learning scientific lab techniques.
Program Mentors
Cancer Biology & Immunotherapies
Pilar De La Puente, PhD
皮拉尔·德·拉·普恩特(Pilar De La Puente)是桑福德研究中心癌症生物学和免疫治疗小组的助理科学家。她在西班牙莱昂大学获得生物学学士学位和动物医学和外科硕士学位，专注于生物医学工程(BME)。博士期间，她获得了萨拉曼卡大学和西班牙组织银行旧金山诊所基金会的奖学金，从事组织工程方面的研究。在获得博士学位后，她继续在华盛顿大学圣路易斯医学院的Azab博士的实验室进行癌症生物学博士后培训，开发组织工程癌症临床前模型，并研究用于血液系统恶性肿瘤(包括多发性骨髓瘤、淋巴瘤和乳腺癌)的局部药物输送系统。2018年6月，她加入Sanford Research。Her lab’s interests are focused on the role of tumor microenvironment (TME) in cancer progression, drug resistance and cancer immunology.
Keith Miskimins, PhD
Dr. Keith Miskimins is a scientist in the Cancer Biology and Immunotherapies group at Sanford Research. He is the PI on the NIH funded Cancer Biology Research Center of Biomedical Research Excellence. His research focus is the protein inhibitor of cell cycle progression that is commonly down-regulated in cancer cells. He holds a bachelor’s degree in zoology from the University of Wyoming, and earned his master’s degree in genetics and doctoral degree in cell and developmental biology from the University of Arizona. He also completed post-doctoral training in cell and developmental biology at the University of Arizona and biology at Yale University.
Steven Powell, MD
Steven Powell, MD, is a practicing medical oncologist and a physician scientist. His laboratory focuses on integrating novel immunotherapies into the management of head and neck cancer and concurrently developing predictive biomarkers. His primary goal is to comprehend how to best incorporate immunotherapy into the management of locally advanced and metastatic head and neck cancer.
Dr. Powell’s research has led to novel strategies to use immune checkpoint inhibitors in combination with chemotherapy and radiation to augment anti-tumor response. Additionally, his work has evaluated biomarkers of immune response. As a clinician, Dr. Powell seeks to bring what he finds in the lab to clinical trials, to directly impact patient care.
Chad Spanos, MD
Dr. Chad Spanos is an assistant scientist in the Cancer Biology and Immunotherapies Group at Sanford Research. He is also a head and neck surgeon at Sanford Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic and an assistant professor in the department of surgery at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine. His lab focuses on head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC), specifically the incidence of a subset of HNSCC caused by the human papillomavirus, which is increasing rapidly. Dr. Spanos holds an MD from the University of Louisville Medical School, completed his residency in otolaryngology at the University of Iowa and served as a fellow at the University of South Florida.
Jianning Tao, PhD
Dr. Jianning Tao received his doctor of philosophy degree in biochemistry/developmental biology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, TN, where he performed his dissertation work in the laboratory of Dr. John Cunningham at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Subsequently, Dr. Tao performed postgraduate work in the laboratory of Dr. Brendan Lee and Dr. Dennis Roop at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, in the departments of Molecular and Human Genetics and Molecular and Cell Biology, first as a postdoctoral fellow and then as an assistant professor. Currently he is a principal investigator and primary faculty member in Cancer Biology and Immunotherapies group at Sanford Research and an assistant professor at the Department of Pediatrics of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine.
Paola Vermeer, PhD
Paola Vermeer博士于1991年在马萨诸塞州沃尔瑟姆的布兰代斯大学获得生物学学士学位，并于1998年在纽约市的哥伦比亚大学获得博士学位。她和Michael J. Welsh博士一起在爱荷华大学霍华德休斯医学研究所做博士后研究。她先后担任Welsh博士和Joseph Zaber博士的研究科学家，直到2008年加入了桑福德研究中心的癌症生物学研究中心，苏福尔斯州。
Cellular Therapies & Stem Cell Biology
Kevin Francis, PhD
Dr. Kevin Francis received his bachelor’s in biology from Marshall University, a master’s in anatomy from the University of Georgia and a doctorate in neuropathology from the Medical University of South Carolina in 2009. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in the laboratories of Heiner Westphal and Denny Porter (NICHD). There, Dr. Francis developed induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models of pediatric disorders of cholesterol synthesis and metabolism, including Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome and Niemann-Pick disease, Type C1. In 2015, Dr. Francis joined the faculty of Sanford Research, where he continues to use patient-derived iPSCs as a tool for modeling rare pediatric disease and identification of targets for therapeutic intervention.
Diabetes
Alexei Savinov, MD, PhD
Dr. Alexei Savinov has been studying diabetes pathogenesis for more than 20 years. He is passionate about understanding how different checkpoints in adaptive immunity are affected during development of autoimmunity. After graduating from The 1st Leningrad Medical Academy (Leningrad, USSR) with an MD and specialization in surgery, he obtained a PhD in biochemistry and cell biology at the Institute for Experimental Medicine, Academy of Medical Sciences of USSR (Leningrad, USSR). Dr. Savinov completed two postdoctoral fellowships: first, in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD) and second, in The Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, ME). Later, he worked as a staff scientist at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (La Jolla, CA) before joining Sanford Research as an assistant scientist.
Enabling Technologies
Indra Chandrasekar, PhD
Indra Chandrasekar obtained her master’s degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India. Her passion for cell biology took her to cytoskeletal research pioneer Dr. Brigitte M. Jockusch’s Lab in Germany, where she received training in basic cell biology concepts and techniques. After receiving her PhD (Dr.rer.nat) degree from Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, she moved to the U.S. Dr. Chandrasekar performed a short postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of renowned actin biologist Dr. John Cooper at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to continue her training in cytoskeletal research. After a baby break, she joined the lab of Dr. Paul Bridgman, an expert cellular neurobiologist and EM specialist at Washington University, where she received training in neuronal cytoskeleton, mouse models and advanced microscopy techniques. She is currently an assistant scientist in the Enabling Technologies Group at Sanford Research, establishing her lab that will study membrane trafficking in vertebrate systems.
Kyle Roux, PhD
Kyle Roux received his BS in Biological anthropology/human biology at Emory University in 1998, and his PhD in neuroscience at the University of Florida College of Medicine in 2004. Subsequently, Kyle performed postgraduate work at the University of Florida College of Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, first as a postdoctoral associate and then as a research assistant professor. Currently he is a faculty member in the Sanford Enabling Technologies Group and principal investigator in the Roux Lab.
Environmental Influences on Health & Disease
Michelle Baack, MD
Dr. Michelle Baack obtained her BS in pharmacy from South Dakota State University (SDSU) in 1991, her MD from the University of South Dakota-School of Medicine (USD) in 1995, and her pediatric residency training from the University of Nebraska Medical Center-Creighton Joint Pediatric Residency Program in 1999. She practiced as a general pediatrician in rural South Dakota for 10 years and later returned to academics to obtain her fellowship in neonatal and perinatal medicine at the University of Iowa in 2008. She completed her neonatology training in 2011 and joined Sanford as a physician – scientist. She is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal and perinatal medicine. She is a clinical neonatologist at Sanford Children’s Hospital; an assistant professor through the Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota; a principal investigator at the Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota; and a principal investigator in Sanford Research’s Environmental Influences on Health and Disease Group in Sioux Falls, SD.
Genetics & Genomics
Mike Kareta, PhD
Mike Kareta is an associate scientist in the Genetics and Genomics Group at Sanford Research. He earned his bachelor of science in molecular and cellular biology at Texas A&M University where in the lab of Dr. Flora Katz he investigated the role of Abelson in the development of retinal neurons is Drosophila. He earned his PhD in the lab of Dr. Frédéric Chédin at the University of California, Davis where he investigated the biochemical mechanisms which underlie DNA Methyltransferase (DNMT) function. He then completed his postdoctoral studies at Stanford university in the labs of Drs. Julien Sage and Marius Wernig. It was at Stanford that he utilized iPS reprogramming to investigate Rb function and identified Sox2 as a key player in tumor formation. In September 2016 he joined Sanford Research.
Pediatrics & Rare Diseases
Francisco Bustos, PhD
Dr. Bustos received his PhD in cell and molecular biology at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile under the supervision of Hugo Olguin where his work focused on the regulation of muscle stem cells by ubiquitylation. His postdoctoral work was carried out in Greg Findlay’s laboratory at the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit at the University of Dundee in Scotland. There, his research identified a signaling module that is disrupted in developmental disorders with intellectual disabilities involving SR-rich protein kinases (SRPK), which regulate the E3 ubiquitin ligase RNF12/RLIM to control neurodevelopmental gene expression.
Dr. Bustos is an assistant scientist at Sanford Research and an assistant professor at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine, where he studies the role of ubiquitin system in developmental disorders, including but not limited to Tonne-Kalscheuer syndrome and Dyskeratosis congenita. Via a combination of stem cell biology, proteomics, gene editing and transcriptomic and biochemical approaches, the Bustos Lab seeks to understand how the disruption of signaling pathways involving ubiquitylation underlies human development disorders”.
Kurt Warnhoff, PhD
沃恩霍夫博士是桑福德研究中心的助理科学家，他的工作重点是钼辅助因子在健康和疾病中的作用。他在遗传学、基因组学、分子生物学和生物化学方面受过广泛的培训，并在利用秀丽隐杆线虫的基因发现和特性描述方面具有专门的专长。在他在华盛顿大学的博士研究期间，他使用秀丽隐杆线虫遗传学和生物化学来阐明促进锌耐受性和内稳态的新途径。As a Damon Runyon fellow, Dr. Warnhoff worked in the lab of the world-renowned geneticist Gary Ruvkun (Harvard Medical School) to establish C. elegans as a premier animal model for discovery of novel molybdenum cofactor biology.
Jill Weimer, PhD
吉尔是美国桑福德医学院儿科和罕见病组的副科学家和儿科系的助理教授。在加入桑福德儿科和罕见病团队之前，Weimer博士在罗切斯特大学完成了神经科学学士和博士学位，并在北卡罗莱纳大学教堂山神经科学中心获得博士后奖学金。
Lance Lee, PhD
Principal Investigator Lance Lee obtained his bachelor of science in biochemistry from Boston College in 1995, his MS in genetics from the University of Connecticut in 1997, and his Ph.D. in cell and developmental biology from Stony Brook University in 2004. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship at Children’s Hospital Boston/Harvard Medical School, where he studied genetic causes of primary ciliary dyskinesia in mouse models. He is currently a faculty member in the Pediatric and Rare Diseases Group at Sanford Research, where he oversees the research projects in the Lee Lab with ongoing interests in cilia biology and primary ciliary dyskinesia genetics.
Ikuo Masuho, PhD
Dr. Masuho has a broad background in molecular biology, with specific expertise in biochemcia, pharmacological, computational and cell biological research on physiological and pathophysiological aspects of G protein – coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling and its regulation. Using a systems biology approach, his study aims to understand the principle of the GPCR signaling system. He earned his PhD from Chiba University in Japan.
Learn more about the Masuho Lab:https://research.sanfordhealth.org/researchers-and-labs/masuho-lab
LJ Pilaz, PhD
Dr. Pilaz received his PhD in Lyon, France, and then moved to the United States where he trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Duke University. He studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate the development of the cerebral cortex and how their disruption can lead to neurodevelopmental diseases such as autism and microcephaly.
Kamesh Surendran, PhD
Kamesh is an associate scientist in the Pediatric and Rare Diseases Group at Sanford Research, and assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota. He has been involved in studying the Wnt, TGF/BMP, and Notch signaling pathways, three evolutionarily conserved signaling pathways, in various aspects of kidney development and disease during his doctoral thesis and post-doctoral work at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. His current research interests are: (i) to understand the cellular and molecular abnormalities that result in childhood cystic kidney diseases and (ii) to determine the molecular regulators of cell fate patterning in the collecting ducts of the kidney.
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