Hunter College senior Latoya Campbell expects to graduate in June in biological sciences and then go on to study cancer biology in graduate school. Her mentor, the award-winning cancer researcher Jill Bargonetti, expects she will feel right at home. “Latoya—who is the only undergraduate working in my laboratory—fully understands the project the lab is carrying out. When she’s discussing the research with me, she asks all the right questions.”

“Latoya is self-motivated and works really hard at her experiments,” Prof. Bargonetti adds, “She has extreme potential.”

Bargonetti, the recipient of a Presiden-tial Early Career Award from the White House, has distinguished herself with research on cell life and how it is regulated by the tumor suppressor protein p53. Campbell’s experiments in the lab involve growing cancer cells in tissue culture and putting recombinant DNA molecules in the cells to examine differences in cellular processes of regulation.

	Dr. Jill Bargonetti, right, and Latoya Campbell.

Campbell, whose studies have been supported by the NIH-funded Minority Access to Research Careers program, gained wide experience in many Hunter labs. “In each lab I learned something new,” she says, but she found a real home with Bargonetti’s team. “Dr. Bargonetti’s such an excellent teacher. She definitely wants you to do the best possible job, but she’s very patient.”

This notable example of educational symbiosis—to use a term from biology—will be one of several featured in the coming weeks in a city-wide informational outreach program, “Meeting of the Minds@City University,” to publicize CUNY’s wide array of academic programs, opportunities for financial aid, student jobs and internships, and such unique initiatives as the CUNY Honors College.

Among other remarkable student- faculty collaborations to be featured in the program and in CUNY Matters are: CSI Prof. of Chemistry Ruth Stark and her biochemistry major Toni Eversley, a future research pharmacist; Oscar-winning Lehman College composer John Corigliano and student Jeffrey Layton, a composer of media and ad music for 30 years; Carnegie Foundation Outstanding Teacher Award-winner Prof. Paris Svoronos and his Queensborough Community College physician’s assistant major Nilda Montes; and former Pulitzer-winning Newsday city editor and Brooklyn College journalism teacher Paul Moses and his student Jego Armstrong, a budding newspaper entre-
preneur.