Szczytkowski to Enroll in Ph.D. Program in Neurobiology

Jennifer Szczytkowski, who will graduate with honors in biopsychology in May, found her niche at Rider University. She would come to the lab to do research on weekends and at night. Her work became a labor of love.
     Now, because of all that time spent in the lab and dedication to her research, she is ready to find a new niche – in the Ph.D. program in neurobiology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill that includes a research assistantship and $21,500 stipend.
     She was also accepted into Ph.D. programs at Johns Hopkins University, University of Connecticut Science Health Center, Vanderbilt University, and Rutgers University. She decided to attend UNC because it most closely matched her research interests.
     “The research I’ve done at Rider has just been phenomenal,” Jenn said. “People don’t realize how strong the biopsychology and biology programs are. They tend to think Rider is a business school, but the University is much more than that. I’ve gained a solid foundation in the sciences.”
     Jenn, a resident of Lawrenceville and graduate of Hamilton High School West, related a story about the demanding three-day group interview process at Johns Hopkins to make the point. “It was a group interview,” she said. “There were candidates from Harvard, Brown and Stanford. We went around the table introducing ourselves. When it was my turn, I announced, ‘I’m from Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ. I just felt everyone stop and look at me and thought they may have been thinking, ‘Where’s Rider?’” At that moment, I realized how proud I was to see what I’ve accomplished at Rider.”
      At Rider, Jenn worked in the lab of Dr. Jonathan Karp, associate professor of biopsychology, where she studied the interaction of the nervous and immune system. She spent all four years and two summers working in Dr. Karp’s lab. Last summer she conducted research at Thomas Jefferson Medical Center in Philadelphia.
     Earlier this year she received a $500 grant-in-aid from Sigma Xi, the national scientific research society, to further her research on the ways chemotherapeutic drugs alter susceptibility to infection and culminates four years of various stages of research under Dr. Karp’s guidance.
     In her experiment, she investigated how the chemotherapeutic drug, cyclophosphamide, influences the interaction between the immune and nervous systems. In previous years, she showed that the drug increases levels of the hormone norepinephrine in mice and that these changes are associated with alterations in the magnitude of immune responses. Her research will determine if the immune effects of cyclophosphamide treatment can be blocked by a drug that prevents norepinephrine from stimulating targeting cells.
     This would support her hypothesis that norepinephrine is indeed an important hormone for mediating nervous system influences on immunity. “The more we understand about how chemotherapy drugs change the nervous system in addition to the immunity system, the more we can understand why cancer patients are more susceptible to certain infections,” Jenn noted.
      “Understanding the neurochemical interactions between the nervous system and the immune system may help us someday reduce the side-effects of chemotherapeutic treatments in people.”
Dr. Karp said, “Jenn is a good example of what Rider can do with bright, motivated students. We can help prepare them for opportunities they never dreamed about when coming out of high school. Part of my job is to guide students and allow them to develop their individual expertise.
      “Jenn is a great success story. She will represent Rider well in whatever she does in the future,” he added.
      Jenn is a 2002 Andrew J. Rider Scholar and a member of Beta Beta Beta, the national honor society in biology. She will also graduate with honors in Rider’s Baccalaureate Honors Program and in biopsychology.
     And she thinks she knows what she her future niche will be when she completes her doctorate and post-doctoral training. She hopes to teach and continue doing research. Just like Dr. Karp.

Return to Newswire
Rider University Home Page