Dominican University men's soccer's Adam Stearns, a rising senior, has been serving in an internship role with Cour Pharmaceuticals in Northbrook this summer. Learn more about Adam's role, how he got to this point, his student-athlete experience and how this will prepare him for his future in this week's Internship Spotlight.
What type of role are you serving in with your summer internship?
My role is defined as Research Intern at Cour Pharmaceuticals Development Company where I am responsible to help in the protein lab which is currently working on making four proteins to make a drug that has the potential to cure Type 1 Diabetes. In the protein lab, I will use techniques like gel electrophoresis which indicates if we have synthesized the correct protein, bacterial transformation which is a process in which we have bacteria (E. coli) take up genetic material and that will replicate so we can have more copies and a way to synthesize the protein, and giga/maxi preps which is a process in which we use to take the plasmids from the bacteria that contain the targeted genetic material so we can synthesize the necessary proteins.
How do you feel your experience as a student-athlete has helped prepare you for this?
Since the lab is a highly collaborative and team-based environment, being a student-athlete has helped tremendously with preparing me for this internship. Being a student-athlete has challenged me to hone my communication skills, my ability to juggle many tasks at once, and to work productively in a team. Further, being a part of the Men's Soccer program at Dominican has taught me the importance of discipline which is critical in the lab since many of the procedures we use are highly specific and technical, requiring a lot of attention to detail and communication to be able to successfully carry out experiments. I am working in a research and development laboratory which means that our plans for the experiments we are carrying out are constantly changing which requires us to stay on our toes and to expect the unexpected, and part of being a student-athlete is being able to "be comfortable being uncomfortable". The 6 AM practices, late nights studying for a test, and constant physical/mental exhaustion have prepared me greatly in being able to adapt to a real-world situation that is fast paced and challenging.
What type of knowledge/experience will you gain here that will help to set you up for future endeavors?
I aspire to go to graduate school after my time here at Dominican to pursue a PhD. While I am not entirely sure what field I want to get my PhD in, this internship is giving me a first-hand look into the exciting real-world application of immunology, microbiology, molecular biology, and pharmaceutical sciences. Since I am the only intern at Cour at the moment, being able to work closely with incredible scientists from world-renowned graduate programs will allow me to learn a lot and make connections with scientists at the very top of their respected fields. Cour is also a very young company so I am also getting an idea of what it is like to be a part of a startup. Cour has developed a unique approach in the field of immunology to reprogram the immune system using nanoparticles to treat the direct causes of disease instead of mitigating the symptoms. The diseases Cour has been working to develop/have developed a drug for are Primary Biliary Cholangitis, Type 1 Diabetes, Celiac Disease, Myastenia Gravis, Immune Thrombocytopenia Purpura, and even Peanut Allergy.
How did you secure this opportunity?
I was very lucky and blessed with getting this internship. My aunt was doing taxes for the VP of Product Development and Analytics who just so happened to be from the same part of southern Illinois that I am from and reached out to my uncle who had a strong connection to him, and next thing I knew I was setting up an interview for an internship! It seems like all the stars aligned perfectly for this to all come together, and I really cannot be more appreciative of my aunt and uncle for making the connection for me and for Cour being willing to take in an intern. I also really have to thank my roommate, teammate, and friend Nick Kowalczyk for helping me brush up my resume and interview skills.
Original source can be found here.
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