Kennesaw State junior biology major Trae Dunn was awarded the prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship Friday, March 27, for his research on genes in Caenorhabditis elegans — commonly known as roundworms — a type of worm with similar genes to humans.
Dunn initially applied for the Goldwater Scholarship last year but was not awarded it. This year, he was nominated by KSU again after working hard to boost his application. Dunn said he feels that winning this scholarship was a “sigh of relief” after researching diligently for three years — but his work is far from finished.
“One of the genes is related to a type of leukemia in humans and the other one is associated with diabetes in humans,” Dunn said. “I essentially studied these genes in C. elegans to give us a better understanding of how these genes may work so we can possibly create drugs for humans based off these findings.”
Dunn started his research on C. elegans during his first semester as a freshman at KSU in Associate Professor of biology Dr. Martin Hudson’s lab. Dunn has also researched two genes that play a role in binding to DNA.
He is now the project lead for leukemia gene research and hopes to see future students publish the research in the future. He also hopes to see the diabetes gene research get published this year.
“We’ve already submitted it for publication, however, we’re working on our reviewer’s comments and hope we are resubmitting soon,” Dunn said.
Outside of KSU, Dunn has also studied C. elegans at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research there was on a different gene not related to human developmental issues.
In the meantime, he plans on finishing well in classes at KSU and going to postgraduate programs.
“In my future endeavors, I hope to work on Alzheimer’s disease because that’s something very important to me,” Dunn said. “I want to work on identifying potential cures and treatments because Alzheimer’s disease right now is not curable and I have had family members that are affected by it.”
With the Goldwater Scholarship, Dunn will pay for school. He noted that housing is particularly expensive in the Kennesaw area and said the scholarship money will be very helpful in that aspect of his education.
“The scholarship has allowed me to meet thousands of other Goldwater students in the past couple of years and being able to connect with those students has been very beneficial so far,” Dunn said. “Being able to talk to them and learn from them is also very beneficial.”
The Goldwater Scholarship is a scholarship of up to $7,500 to help cover the costs of tuition, mandatory fees, textbooks and housing, according to the Goldwater Scholarship website. Full-time juniors and seniors with a GPA of at least 3.0 and the intention to pursue a research career in natural sciences, mathematics or engineering are eligible for the Goldwater Scholarship.
