JONESBORO, Ark. — As Jayson Smith approached his sophomore year at Nettleton High School, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in medicine, but he didn’t really know where to start.
“I made a Facebook post asking for advice, and that post literally changed my life,” Smith said.
Smith quickly received a response from Rebecca Camarata, who was a teacher at University Heights Elementary School when Smith was a student there. At the time, Camarata’s husband Dr. Troy Camarata was a faculty member at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University (NYITCOM at A-State), and Camarata invited Smith to attend a new pipeline program the school was starting that summer aimed at young people just like Smith.
SHARE, which is an acronym for Summer Health Academy for Research Exploration, is a program NYITCOM operates to allow high school students like Smith to spend eight weeks working alongside research scientists from both the medical school and A-State. The program also incorporates a number of hands-on STEM activities.
Smith participated in the SHARE program for four years. He’s now a rising sophomore psychology/pre-med major at the University of Central Arkansas, and last week, he shared his story at NYITCOM at A-State’s graduation program for its seventh SHARE cohort.
“Young people like Jayson are exactly why we created this program,” said Rajendram Rajnarayanan, Ph.D., NYITCOM at A-State’s associate dean of research and founder of the SHARE program. “With so many workforce needs in STEM fields, is it incumbent on us as educators to not just mentor and encourage the Jaysons of the world, but we have to facilitate opportunities for them to get in a lab and gain experiences that will inspire them.”
Over the last seven years, 54 high school students have participated in SHARE. Almost half (25) come from Nettleton like Smith, with other Northeast Arkansas schools such as Jonesboro, Brookland, Valley View, Marion, and Pocahontas also having strong representation.
The program is funded by a grant from the American Chemical Society, which provides a $4,000 stipend per participant that allows them to earn some often much-needed income.
“There are so many students who want to further their education in the summer but can’t because their families need them to get a job,” Rajnarayanan said. “Thanks to the American Chemical Society Project SEED and other program sponsors, we’ve removed that barrier.”
Throughout the summer, NYITCOM faculty and staff lead SHARE participants through interactive activities that cover topics such as pharmacology, anatomy, and population health. The students also regularly participate in medical simulations and receive in-depth tours of the A-State campus and undergraduate admissions presentations from NYITCOM’s partner.
That investment has paid off. Of those that have completed the SHARE program, 15 have enrolled in science programs at A-State. An additional eight are now at UCA, with others attending colleges throughout the state and region.
Perhaps the most unique and invaluable component is the research one. NYITCOM and A-State faculty members are paired with the participants, and the students spend extensive time working alongside their mentors in their Arkansas Biosciences Institute labs.
The research projects cover a wide variety of topics. This summer, one participant extracted anticancer compounds from peanut hairy roots and tested synthetic cancer drugs in cultured cells. Others compared the genetics of birds and the feather lice that live on them, used DNA barcoding to track invasive species, and investigated a protein that helps repair damaged nerves.
Additionally, a student studied the spectroscopic signatures of microplastics and helped develop polymer-based platforms to filter them out of the water supply. Another group examined how chemotherapy drugs like cisplatin and carboplatin bind to DNA, while others explored how certain insecticides can disrupt the body’s internal clock and raise the risk of obesity and diabetes.
“The breadth of what these students took on this summer blew me away,” said Natarajan Ganesan, Ph.D., NYITCOM’s assistant director of educational research, who serves as the SHARE program coordinator. “These are high schoolers doing this work. Before participating in SHARE, they don’t have any idea what they’re capable of. It’s incredible.”
Rajnarayanan is hopeful that in three years, Smith will return to his hometown to attend medical school at NYITCOM. While Smith would be one of the first SHARE graduates to do so, Rajnarayanan is confident Smith won’t stand alone in that accomplishment.
“We’re investing in these students, and they’re accomplishing great things,” Rajnarayanan said. “Running programs like this isn’t easy. It requires significant work and collaboration, but it’s worth it when you are able to watch the students grow and flourish. It’s incredibly inspiring to all of us who are committed to helping train the next generation of scientists and physicians.”
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