Each year, interns and trainees from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) education and training programs celebrate achievements, whether that’s making new discoveries in their cell and gene therapy research or advancing to the next phase of their professional journey.
This summer, Rashi Ranjan—a former SPARK high school intern—is celebrating her graduation from University of Pittsburgh, where she worked diligently to complete a Bachelor of Science in Computational Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies.
A Unique High School Internship Experience
Rashi participated in the CIRM-funded SPARK internship at City of Hope in the summer of 2019, which she says strongly influenced the trajectory of her studies.
SPARK, also known as the Summer Program to Accelerate Regenerative Medicine Knowledge, offers California high school students an invaluable opportunity to gain hands-on training in stem cell research at some of California’s leading research institutes. Rashi—a student at Leland High School in San Jose during her internship—is one of hundreds of students across California who have participated since the program’s launch in 2012.
During her summer internship, Rashi spent her time in the City of Hope lab analyzing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences to assess the efficacy of CAR-T cell therapy for glioblastoma, the most common primary brain tumor in adults. At the end of the program, she presented her research project at the SPARK annual conference and on social media.
“Learning to perform image segmentation was no easy feat,” Rashi wrote in a 2019 blog about her internship experience. “Even after two months of studying a brain and identifying the different components, I can revisit a study I finished working on three hours ago and find something I missed. Even though I’m not a radiologist, I’ve learned the power of immunotherapy in an era of precision imaging.”
City of Hope
Her CIRM and City of Hope internship experience inspired a new passion alongside research: science storytelling.
During college, Rashi worked for her school’s newspaper and Massive Science, a science storytelling publication that aims to make research articles easier for the public to understand. At Massive Science, she wrote articles that made complex science more accessible.
Throughout college, she continued to conduct research in labs, including immunology and cell and gene therapy, and shared updates on her social media account along the way.
Now, she is preparing to work full-time as she decides on her next educational journey.
“CIRM’s SPARK internship and City of Hope gave me the confidence to reach out to professors about topics I didn’t know about and get involved in research, and I attribute those early experiences to my wanting to study and work towards a PhD in the future,” says Rashi.
About CIRM’s Education & Training Programs
CIRM’s education and training programs support the next generation of regenerative medicine scientists, ranging from high school and undergrad students to doctoral candidates and clinical fellows.
CIRM funds four unique internship programs, each with its own set of requirements: SPARK (high school), Bridges (Undergraduate and Masters), COMPASS (Undergraduate), and Scholars (Pre-Doctoral, Post-Doctoral, and Clinical Fellows).
Each program offers hands-on experience to build a workforce skilled in stem cell science and the technical expertise crucial to current and future scientific and medical advances.
Partnering with community colleges and universities, research institutions, and biotechnology companies, each program aims to attract diverse talent to regenerative medicine by offering varied career paths and accessibility across a broader educational spectrum.
To date, CIRM’s educational and training programs have supported 3,800 interns and fellows, the majority of whom have achieved employment or chosen to pursue further education in regenerative medicine or related fields. Learn more about CIRM’s programs on our website.