In case you have been able to avoid making eye contact with any Pitt newspaper this week, Wen Xu, a Junior here at Pitt majoring in Neuroscience has received national recognition winning the 2011 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for her excellence in the field of research. This intelligent young woman has plans to contine her education obtaining a MD/phD degree after she graduates from Pitt.
The type of research this young woman is kicking some hardcore butt in includes research in Pitt’s Stem Cell Reseach Center. Her specific project is working towards assisting functional skeletal muscle recovery after an injury occurs by using growth factor-derived stem cells.
For those of us who are scared to admit that we’re not as well-educated in the Stem Cell Research as we probably should be, here’s a brief translation:
Wen wants to help people who have nerve damage by finding a viable treatment method.
I happen to know Wen as she is taking over next year as President of an organization I’m involved with, The National Society of Collegiate Scholars, and has been involved with it since I can remember.
After meeting up with a few of the members of NSCS tonight, I suddenly rememberd Wen’s rise to stardom this week and mentioned it to the other girls. ” How about Wen?! She’s all over Pitt’s papers. She’s famous!” I said. One of the other girls, a good friend of Wen’s looked at me and said, “She’s amazing. Of course, she got it. She really didn’t think she was going to. She was totally shocked.” We all rattled on about how deserving Wen is. Not only is she a total sweetheart, but she also must really not realize how brilliant she truly is. You just can’t fake that type of sincerity.
“And she was worried about getting into Med school,” her friend told us laughing.