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A first-author credit already on the books

Jacqualyn Schulman

Jacqualyn Schulman has achieved a rare feat for a first-year student in the College of Graduate Studies – she has a first-author credit in a scientific journal for her research into a protein that could play a role in cancer.

Jacqualyn came to Upstate in 2012 after earning a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology from the Rochester Institute of Technology. She spent a year as a laboratory assistant before enrolling in the College of Graduate Studies.

Like most first-year biomedical sciences graduate students here, Jacqualyn has rotated through three different labs to help choose a program and a mentor for the rest of her doctoral program.

She will continue working with Richard Wojcikiewicz, PhD, professor and interim chair of Pharmacology. He was Jacqualyn’s mentor on the research project that was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry in July 2013.

“Richard presented the topic to me, and it was all new,” Jacqualyn said of her research into the Bcl-2 protein family member Bok. “It sounded interesting, so we worked on it, submitted it and got some comments back. I just kept plowing through. We resubmitted it, and it was accepted and published.”

Jacqualyn said Upstate offers a demanding but supportive atmosphere for graduate students in the biomedical sciences.

“It’s challenging, but challenging in the best way,” she said. “I never thought of pharmacology as an undergrad, but I came here and got a better idea of what the departments were working on. It was a nice surprise, to fall in love with something else.”

Update:

Jacqualyn completed her Ph.D. in November 2018.  Here is a summary of her current research.

Jacqualyn is a Research Scientist in the Cell Line Development and `Omics group at Bristol-Myers Squibb in New Jersey.  Jacqualyn develops mammalian cell lines for the production of monoclonal antibodies, fusion proteins, and antibody drug conjugates, for clinical and commercial manufacturing.  Additionally, Jacqualyn utilizes CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing to develop new cell lines to improve the production of therapeutic biologics.

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