This past summer, over 50 students in grades 10-12 participated in the Marymount Internship Program with placements spanning the fields of science, medicine, history, law, and entertainment.

Junior Krystyna Maruszko spent her summer interning under the mentorship of Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl, who works in the Department of Neurology at UCLA. This lab specializes in the research of Multiple Sclerosis, “a neurodegenerative disease in which the body’s proteins attack the myelin sheath on the axon, and they eventually damage the axon causing both cognitive and physical ailments,” Krystyna explained.

In the lab, she particularly enjoyed the wide array of tasks that she was able to perform and how everyday served as a learning experience. Whether she was, “running PCR gels, examining sections of tissues under electron microscopes, chromosome counting, or generally just studying the effects of the hormones estrogen and testosterone on the brain,” Krystyna was always busy furthering her knowledge in the field of neuroscience.

Krystyna loved researching alongside graduates, undergraduates, and a lab assistant named Noriko, who Krystyna describes as, “the happiest person ever.” While the lab’s primary focus is finding a cure for Multiple Sclerosis, Krystyna liked how they “also studied how the brain works and were trying to advance the knowledge that we have as humans of how the brain functions and what causes it to function.” She commented that the knowledge she acquired throughout the summer has greatly helped her in her AP Biology work so far, seeing as many of the concepts relate to the procedures and research she witnessed in Dr. Voskuhl’s lab.

In addition to lab work, another aspect of the internship was shadowing Dr. Voskuhl’s clinic and watching her prescribe medicines to patients with MS. By watching interactions with patients, Krystyna was able to see firsthand how the disease can impact people’s lives. She described that:

“It’s a three to one ratio of females to males that this disease affects, and it

begins to manifest around someone’s twenties. Since the damage in the brain

is permanent, symptoms will start as really mild and gradually get worse and

worse until you can’t walk anymore. The only treatments that we have for it

so far are daily shots, which do not cure the disease but only slow down the

effects. Pills are becoming more common, but are not as frequently used

because they have not been tested as much.”

The most beneficial, transferrable skill that Krystyna obtained through her internship experience this summer is the “importance of patience.” While the experiments themselves can take years, she also explained the pressure of “having to everything right the first time, so that you don’t have to spend more years repeating them.”

Ultimately, Dr. Voskuhl’s lab is at the forefront of the race to cure MS, and Krystyna was honored to work with someone who is such an expert on the disease.