The H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation has awarded a $121,520 grant to the City of Hope’s Graduate School of Biological Sciences to support four promising first-year graduate students.
The grant will cover $30,000 in stipends and expenses for the students, who will receive H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation Fellowships. The foundation has awarded several grants to the graduate school and has contributed more than $660,000 to City of Hope since 1994.
“These fellowships are important to both the graduate school and to the students,” said John Rossi, Ph.D., Lidow Family Research Chair in the Division of Molecular Biology and dean of City of Hope’s graduate school. “First year students are not eligible for stipend support from their mentors’ National Institutes of Health-awarded research grants. Support from the Berger Foundation enables these students to meet their most pressing needs and work effectively through their first year in the program.”
The 2007-08 H.N. and Frances C. Berger Fellows — Amanda Gunn, Rongze Lu, Jeremy Racine and Karina Vega — come from varied backgrounds. Gunn graduated from University of California, Irvine, and the University of New Haven, with professional experience at Yale Medical Center. Lu attended Tongji University in Shanghai, and Racine studied at Cornell and Harvard universities, while Vega went to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Vega had previously spent a summer as an intern at City of Hope.
Each of the fellows has completed one 10-week rotation in a City of Hope laboratory setting and will do two more in their first year.
“Students at City of Hope’s graduate school have the potential to contribute a great deal to the scientific community and to the institution’s efforts to speed discoveries into improved treatments,” said Ron Auen, foundation president. “The H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation is pleased to support City of Hope and its graduate students.”
The H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation was established as a private family foundation in 1961. Headquartered in Palm Desert, Calif., the foundation generously supports educational and other charitable projects. Since 1993, the Berger Foundation has contributed more than $220 million to charities throughout Southern California and the United States. The Berger Foundation aims to provide people with the opportunity to improve their own situations.
City of Hope’s Graduate School of Biological Sciences trains students to be outstanding research scientists in chemical, molecular and cellular biology. Program graduates receive a Doctor of Philosophy degree in biological sciences degree and are equipped to address fundamental questions in the life sciences and biomedicine for careers in academia, industry and government.
