University of Southern California Professor’s ARRA Award Provides Employment and Training for Future MD

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Morgan Hawkins graduated from the University of Southern California in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences, $30,000 in student loan debt, and a desire to go to medical school.  Thanks to a Recovery Act-funded grant from the National Institutes of Health to a USC professor, the 23-year-old native of South Los Angeles is back at USC working as a research and laboratory technician, gaining critical training and employment as he saves for his graduate studies.

Hawkins is working in the lab of Susan Forsburg, a professor of molecular and computational biology at USC College.

The path to Forsburg’s lab wasn’t exactly smooth, though.   Hawkins college career began in 2004 at Xavier University, a historically black college in New Orleans.  Then Hurricane Katrina hit and he lost everything.  He had no transcripts or record of his work there, which made transferring elsewhere difficult. His father died unexpectedly and left the family without a bread winner.  His mother moved from California to Mississippi to stay with relatives and Hawkins was left to wrap up his father’s business.  His break finally came when USC admitted him as a transfer student.

After graduation on 2008, Hawkins spent the next year in a post-baccalaureate program at the University of California – Davis and then answered an online job posting for a research and laboratory technician at USC.  He beat out stiff competition for the position.

Hawkins plans to work in Forsburg’s lab until the fall of 2010, when he hopes to go to medical school.  He and two graduate students are studying the genetic roots of miscarriages by exploring related genes in the model organism S. pombe, a type of yeast.

More than half of miscarriages result from gross chromosomal abnormalities in the developing fetus, Hawkins said.  Understanding the genetics of model organisms is a common strategy for gaining insight into human processes.  Learn more>>

Forsburg’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant from the National Institutes of Health is for $326,000

* Photo courtesy USC