May 23, 2011 | UW Bioengineering

Cameron Turtle, a junior who is majoring in Bioengineering at the UW, has received an American Heart Association summer research fellowship. Turtle will work this summer in the lab of Michael Regnier, professor and vice-chair in the Department of Bioengineering. He has worked in the Regnier lab since his freshman year, studying protein engineering approaches to treat heart disease.

Turtle was recently awarded a Barry Goldwater Scholarship, given this year to 275 promising undergraduates who plan to pursue careers in the sciences, math, or engineering. He is a founding member of Bioengineers Without Borders at the UW, a student organization aimed at using technology to solve public health problems in the developing world. He has also been a member of Engineers Without Borders, where he assisted in designing a water treatment system for a village in Suriname.

His research in the Regnier lab this summer will focus on understanding the long-term effect of heart attacks on the molecular mechanisms of cardiac activation. The project will examine the changes over time in the calcium and sarcomere-length sensitivity of cardiac muscle. Turtle may also work on a project over the summer looking at the roles different cardiac regulatory proteins, and examining the importance of various molecular interactions in cardiac function. This work could later help in the design of genetic or other kinds of therapies for cardiac diseases.