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When Elizabeth Guancial walked into the lab on the first day of her internship at the National Institutes of Health, she was surprised to find the 14 scientists in the clinical virology section of the Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases gathered around a television. The group was watching one of their colleagues on "Good Morning America."

That was her first clue that the researchers she would be working with were nationally renowned in their field. The second came when she was asked to pull together some research on the Herpes Simplex Type 2 virus, only to find that the authority on the subject was Steven Straus, her lab chief.

Each week, Dr. Straus assigned her journal articles that they would later discuss together. "Some of our research was presented last summer at the International Herpesvirus Workshop, and I was listed as a co-author of a manuscript that the lab recently submitted for publication," she said. "It was an incredible honor to be the only undergraduate in the lab working with some of the top scientists in the world."

Elizabeth, a biochemistry major, is no stranger to research. She spent the previous two summers at Hamilton in Professor Tim Elgren's lab investigating the catalytic activity of ribonucleotide reductase, and last summer she used her Bristol Scholarship stipend at the Roswell Research Institute in Buffalo, NY, where she investigated levels of phospholipase A2 and their role in prostate cancer. For her senior project, she is collaborating with Professor Steve Festin on a project that identifies levels of alphafeto protein on breast cancer cells. Their work could lead to new techniques in surpressing cancer growth.

"What attracts me to science is the hands-on problem-solving," said Elizabeth, who plans to attend medical school. "Physicians should have a background in science. It's important to see what's happening in the lab today since that will influence the treatments of tomorrow."

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