Utah Catholic high school students spend their summer as interns at the University of Utah

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Eight Juan Diego Catholic High School Academy of Sciences students interned with University of Utah College of Pharmacy research lab. They are shown with their lab professors and Dr. Christine Celestino (far right), who leads the JDCHS Academy of Sciences. Courtesy photo/JDCHS

SALT LAKE CITY/ DRAPER — High school students from Juan Diego and Judge Memorial Catholic high schools had the opportunity to work as interns at the University of Utah this summer.

Juan Diego’s Academy of Science, with a grant from the ALSAM Foundation, works with the university to provide an internship program. This year, eight Soaring Eagle students participated in this program. Most of them were sophomores.

At the end of their internships, the students presented their research. Michael Enda, Connor Helgeson and Gabe Freeman conducted cancer-related research. This was Zach Schonrock’s second internship. He studied drug affects on cholesterol reduction. Kate Bradford tested epileptic seizures in mice, while Erik Perez studied the impact of certain enzymes on autoimmune diseases like lupus and diabetes.

Two other Juan Diego students will present their research papers later this fall.

Also this summer, four Judge students were selected to work as interns in research labs at the University of Utah: Jim Best-Devereux, William Cisneros, Sam Stevenson and Ally Dugan.

Best-Devereux was unable to follow through with the internship due to illness.

Cisneros worked in the university’s Department of Biochemistry, doing new research on HIV.

"It was really helpful. I got first-hand experience on public presentation and every two weeks we had to explain what we had done and learned," said Cisneros.

Two years ago two other Judge Memorial students were selected as University of Utah interns. When Cisneros heard that he got excited about being able to have that experience, so during the spring semester he approached his chemistry teacher and asked for help getting into the program.

As it happens, that instructor is Gary Ayton, who was a professor at the University of Utah before taking his current position at Judge Memorial. Ayton arranged with a number of his former colleagues to find lab placements for these students this summer in their labs.

"I have a better work ethic after seeing how all the hard work that people do actually makes a difference," said Cisneros, who worked with University of Utah Professor Chris Hill and his research group in the Department of Biochemistry.

Also working with Professor Hill on HIV research was Dugan, while Stevenson worked with Professor Valeria Molinero in a group that researched molecular dynamics simulations of proton transfer in fuel cells.

"I am delighted that these four scholars had the opportunity to explore their interests in the sciences," said Ayton in a statement. "Our collaboration with the University of Utah is unique and provides our high school students with extraordinary opportunities such as these. It is indeed very exciting."