(Posted April 14, 2003)

HUNTINGDON. Pa. -- Anne Gaynor, a junior at Juniata College from Binghamton, N.Y. studying forensic biology and the daughter of Faith White and Charles Gaynor II, received a prestigious fellowship to work on a summer immunology research project at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass.

Gaynor received $2,000 from the American Physiological Society as part of the society's Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship Program. Gaynor is one of 12 undergraduate students nationwide -- and the first student from Juniata -- to receive the stipend for summer research.

"I like science because it allows me to see how things work on a molecular level," Gaynor says. "I have been interested in infectious disease transmission and I would like to do research in that area when I graduate."

Gaynor will work on a 10-week research project from June through August studying the function of the human body's immune system in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory L. Stahl, associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School.

The Juniata student has worked on several undergraduate research projects, including investigations of limb development in the red flour beetle and the study of retroelements within baker's yeast that behave in similar fashion to infectious viruses.

She is a member of Tri-Beta, the honorary society for biology. She also is student manager of the Juniata College swim team and serves as an officer in the Water Polo Club.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.