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UA students researching plant life in S. America

While most undergraduate science students are toiling over textbooks this time of year, University of Arizona biology senior Dawn Noel spends her days studying plants in a botanical preserve in the Andes Mountains in Chile.

Noel is one of four biology undergraduate students who is participating in the BRAVO - Biomedical Research Abroad Vistas Open - program this semester.

Noel, who is in a dual degree program consisting of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Science, is conducting her research project in Santiago, Chile. She is involved in a botanical preserve research and is studying herbaceous vegetation.

"It's great working here because Chileans are very hospitable to foreigners such as myself," Noel stated in an e-mail interview. She has traveled to Vina del Mar and Valaparasio, and a trip to Southern Chile is coming up.

Since the program began in 1992, 84 UA students have participated in these research projects and have been sent to countries like Japan, Egypt, Peru, the Czech Republic, France and South Africa.

Carol Bender, program director of BRAVO, said the students who apply for the program must be biology undergraduates and have at least six months of research experience.

All of the expenses for the students come from two grants - the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health for Minority International Research Training.

"The real neat thing about this university is that the faculty is connected internationally and so they help students get their projects going," Bender said.

Noel is enjoying her stay in Chile, but she had a hard time adjusting.

"For the first time in my life, I really miss Tucson," she stated.

Also, Chilean Spanish is known for being more difficult to understand, but she feels she has finally gotten "the gist of it." She added that she gets frustrated when she watches her favorite TV shows such as "Seinfeld" or "ER" and the Spanish subtitles are wrong.

Being in Chile has given Noel a sense of her American culture, she stated. She returns on Dec. 15.

Dominic Titone, another participant in BRAVO, is living in Geelong, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. He works at the CSIRO National Laboratory, Division of Animal Health, where he is developing a new line of cells in the immune system of chickens.

These cells, Natural Killer-T cells, may play an important role in the immune system.

"The work is tough but rewarding," Titone stated in an e-mail interview.

Besides the research Titone participates in, Titone stated he is enjoying life in Australia. He had the chance to visit the park being constructed for the Olympics in 2000.

"Overall, my experience here has been fantastic and I couldn't have hoped for a better way to spend a year abroad," Titone stated.

Oscar Serrano is a biochemistry and molecular and cellular biology senior studying at the Physiologiches Institut der Universidat Wurzburg in Wurzburg, Germany.

The institute is next to the house where Wilhem Rontgen discovered X-rays in 1895 and was awarded the Nobel Prize.

"It's very motivating and dazzling for me to be doing research in almost the same place where Rontgen made such a beneficial discovery to mankind," Serrano stated.

In his project, Serrano is aiming to investigate the importance of proteins in kidney cells.

The highlights of non-work related activities for Serrano was visiting Vienna, Austria and Oktoberfest in Munich.

"It was the biggest party I have ever attended," Serrano stated. "It was something unreal."

Serrano was interested in learning that beer used to be considered an essential source of nutrition in Germany, because of its barley and wheat content.

"This experience has been very enriching and exciting for me," Serrano stated. He will be in Germany until Dec. 20, when he will return to Tucson to graduate.

Regina Benton is also involved in the program and is studying in Florence, Italy. She recently returned from a vacation in Paris and was unavailable for comment.