The application period is now open for this year's Plant Pathways Elucidation Project (P2EP) Summer Internship Program. The application can be downloaded from p2ep.org and must be submitted by February 28 for consideration. This is a research opportunity for students who may be interested in spending their summer immersed in research areas including plant science, genomics, metabolomics, phytochemicals, regenerative medicine, and bioinformatics.
P2EP is an unpaid internship program that offers an incredible research experience in a real-world laboratory setting. Interns are expected to work 25 hours per week (Monday through Thursday, 9am-4pm). The internship program is part of a larger academic-industry partnership, based on collaborative research at the N.C. Research Campus aimed at discovering the genomic and metabolomic basis behind plants' abilities to synthesize phytoactive compounds that proactively improve human health.
The internship is based at the N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis, NC. Interns will be divided into small groups with a faculty advisor and a graduate student mentor from either NC State University's Plants for Human Health Institute or UNC Charlotte's Bioinformatics Services Division. Some research teams conduct functional genome sequence assembly in tandem with plant pathways research for specific food crops (banana, blueberry, broccoli, oats and pineapple). Other teams focus on bioinformatics; mining data to further contribute to a research knowledgebase. Applicants will be asked to rank their interest in this summer's projects.
As the summer concludes, each team will give an oral presentation of their research and present a scientific poster at the P2EP Summer Research Symposium. In addition to work on research projects, interns will participate in weekly professional development activities and bi-weekly 5-Minute Madness (a brief team presentation of their research progress).
The P2EP experience may qualify for college credit. Students are encouraged to ask their advisor if undergraduate research credit is available in their degree program. For additional information, send inquiries to P2EP_contact@ncsu.edu.