HARLINGEN — She’s breaking new ground.
Camryn Hale just spent two weeks of graduate level work — as a high school freshman — performing research on genetics and how different animal parts affect traits.
The project has strong applications on research into diabetes.
“That opportunity is not open for a lot of people my age,” said Camryn, 14, a freshman at the Dr. Abraham P. Cano Freshman Academy.
Camryn spent two weeks this summer performing genetic research at the South Texas Diabetes and Obesity Institute. She worked with Michael Mahaney, a genetic epidemiologist, studying Brazilian possums.
“We would test the age, weight and sex of the animal,” said Camryn, who plays baritone with the Harlingen High School Marching Band.
She spent the two-week session at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville.
“I was given the measurements of organs and I put it into a computer program that would tell me how much certain traits affect those organs,” she said.
“The part I was working on didn’t specifically talk about diabetes but it could further go into, ‘If that organ was larger, does it affect diabetes,’ that kind of thing.”
She learned a great deal about her growing interest in genetics.
“There are so many different parts of genetics,” she said.
“But my main draw to genetics is that I love finding the behavior characteristics in animals. I was thinking that maybe genetics would lead to telling me why animals were behaving that way.”
With this new experience, she’s better able to gauge whether she actually wants to pursue the field – but there’s obviously still time to decide.
Wherever her life takes her, she seems to like the idea of being the first of many.
“They are looking to continue doing that with high school students and I was the first that I know of,” she said.
“I was sort of the guinea pig.”
