The future looks bright for junior biology major Iyinyeoluwa “Ruth” Okulate. Her name just keeps popping up on the lists of end-of-year student accolades—all preparing her for a career in medicine.
Okulate, who is in UMES’ Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation program, plans on taking her MCAT in March 2022. When Dr. Tracy Bell, an associate professor of biology and LSAMP program coordinator, posted a notice to the group about an opportunity to receive financial assistance and test prep, she jumped on it. Her application, which included answering a series of questions, providing her GPA and submitting two essays, earned her a spot on the list of recipients of Proton Guru’s 2021 MCAT Ladder Scholars. Awardees received $1,000 full scholarships to take the MCAT Ladder Full Preparation course. (A note to interested students, the next call for applications opens in January 2022.)
She was also among eight SANS students who are in the LSAMP program to attend and present ePosters at the 2021 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students. Held virtually again this year due to the ongoing pandemic, Okulate was the only UMES representative to compete in the 3-Minute Lightning Talk. Although all of the 3-M presenters received a $100 award for participating, the real award was in the experience.
“I really enjoyed it,” Okulate said. “It helped me practice being able to describe my research work precisely, not necessarily quickly. All of the necessary information has to be presented in a small period of time like an elevator pitch, a skill that may help you get an internship down the line.”
Okulate’s research under Bell’s mentorship may one day shed light on how hypertension develops in patients with Type 2 diabetes or hyperinsulinemia. The objective of the study was to “determine the effects of insulin on the sodium-proton exchanger 3 (NHE3), an important protein in the kidney responsible for the majority of sodium-water reabsorption.” Several studies, she said, have shown that insulin is an important regulator of NHE3 in the kidney, which is linked to an increase in blood volume and blood pressure. The study involved injecting adult zebrafish with saline or insulin (five fish per treatment group) intraperitoneally and dissecting their kidneys for gene (RNA) expression analysis.
“Preliminary results showed that the messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of NHE3b increased in the zebrafish kidney following the insulin injection; however, there was no change in NHE3a, suggesting that the effect of insulin on NHE3 in the zebrafish kidney is isoform-specific,” she said. “The data supports previous studies that show an interaction between insulin and NHE3 in human kidneys; therefore, zebrafish may provide a system to understand how NHE3 is regulated by insulin.”
Okulate, a UMES Richard A. Henson Honors Program Vanguard and vice president of the student association, also shared her work as a delegate to the National Collegiate Honors Council Conference in Orlando at the end of October. The four-day event featured poster competitions, informational sessions, keynote speakers, roundtable discussions and opportunities for networking.
Presenting her research poster titled, “Intraperitoneal Injection of Insulin Increases the Expression of the Sodium Hydrogen Exchanger Isoform 3 (NHE3) in the Zebrafish Kidney,” she said, “helped prepare me for my pursuit of an M.D./Ph.D.”
“A huge part of doing research is having to talk about what you are doing and your findings, especially to people who may not be familiar with your field of interest,” Okulate said. “The experience provided me with feedback on what I was doing right and tips to help me move forward.”
The whole program, she said, was valuable—being able to attend a conference in-person to network with fellow students to see what research they are doing, to meeting professors and connecting with potential graduate programs.
In her “spare” time, Okulate serves as the UMES delegate for the Mary PIRG Student Climate Action Coalition, a senior resident assistant in the Herman Franklin Paraprofessional program, is a student assistant in the Office of the President and is a member of the biology society and the Alpha Omicron Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
