Jed Barash, a candidate for May graduation from Hamilton, has been awarded a J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship for study at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. Barash's project is titled, "The Role of Manganese and Copper in the Initiation of Sporadic Scrapie."
The purpose of the Fulbright program is to increase mutual understanding between the people of Iceland and the people of the U.S. through educational exchange.
Barash, who hopes to go on to medical school after his year in Iceland, is particularly interested in diseases and the transmission of infection. He plans to study prion diseases, including Mad Cow disease, Creudtzfeldt Jakob Disease and scrapie, which are thought to be carried by proteins, rather than bacteria or viruses. In Iceland, Barash will work with researchers who are exploring a new hypothesis on the cause of such diseases.
Barash, a government major and premed student at Hamilton, is a graduate of Amity Regional High School, Woodbridge. During his junior year at Hamilton he participated in the college's Semester in Washington program, working in Sen. Joseph Lieberman's office, and pursued his interest in the government's handling of epidemiological issues. He is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Paul Barash of Orange, CT.
