The power of undergraduate research

When Sean Fletcher walked into Sam Biswas' Medical and Molecular Sciences (MMSC) lab at the University of Delaware College of Health Sciences during the summer of his first year, he had no research or laboratory experience.

Two years later, the senior honors medical diagnostics major has published a paper as a first author after uncovering new insights into how human papillomavirus (HPV) functions on a molecular level.

"I took a chance and brought him into my lab," said Biswas. "Sean worked on a computational biology approach to our HPV bench work that required a lot of out-of-the-box work, which gave us a new understanding of how the virus works."

Fletcher's work was supported in part by the Angela Santoro '05 Research Award, which provides full-time summer research opportunities for UD-MMSC undergraduates. Established in memory of Angela Santoro, a dedicated scientist who worked at ChristianaCare before her passing in 2021, and funded through the generosity of Angela's parents, Shelly and Pete Santoro, with additional funding generated through I Heart UD Giving Day donations, the award allowed Fletcher to devote himself fully to lab research, laying the groundwork for his first-author publication.

In a study recently published in Virology Journal, Fletcher and co-authors Biswas, professor of MMSC, and Esther Biswas-Fiss, professor and chair of MMSC, used bioinformatics to pinpoint conserved regions of the HPV E2 protein, which plays a critical role in the virus's ability to replicate and cause cancer. The team found that specific mutations may alter protein function, significantly increasing cancer risk.

"It's rare for an undergraduate to be a first author in a prestigious journal. This really distinguishes Sean," said Biswas-Fiss. "It's a very medically-focused paper with implications for HPV - a global health problem - and potential treatments."