Researching the Brain: Elina Zakin '09
When Elina Zakin '09 decided to attend Barnard, she was drawn to the location of its Manhattan campus and the intellectual breadth of its Nine Ways of Knowing. Most of all, she chose Barnard for the major it offered in neuroscience and behavior.
Since high school, Elina has known that her future lies in the practice of medicine. And while she tries to keep an open mind about her eventual area of specialization, she has strong personal reasons for believing that neurology will be her chosen field. Diseases of the brain and nervous system have plagued three succeeding generations of Elina's family. Her grandfather suffered from brain cancer, and both her father and younger sister have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Now, as the only undergraduate on a team of distinguished scientists, Elina is engaged in cutting-edge research aimed at solving the mysteries of MS. This summer she began working on a study at the Multiple Sclerosis Research Center of New York, and she continues that work this fall. The researchers she has joined are examining spinal fluid on a molecular level, focusing on a protein that may be linked to the development of cognitive dysfunction in MS patients.
"Damage is found in the cerebellum of MS patients who've died. We're examining the protein's expression in the cerebellum and its possible correlation to dementia-type symptoms," Elina explains, adding, "There might be a correlation with Alzheimer's and other diseases as well." Next spring, for her senior project in cellular neuroscience, she will analyze the study and present its findings so far.
Elina found the research position on her own, by gathering the names of labs doing federally funded studies of MS and sending them her résumé - a résumé that couldn't fail to impress. Typically impressive was her work in 2007 as a teaching assistant for two Barnard science courses - one in cellular and molecular biology, and the other in bioenergetics and nutrition. Also noteworthy was her work in 2007-08 at the New York Psychiatric Institute, where she participated in molecular research on the causes and effects of schizophrenia.
As she pursues her current research in the MS lab, Elina also works directly with the public as a patient-advocate volunteer in the emergency room at Bellevue Hospital. Her conversational knowledge of Spanish and her fluency in Russian - a language spoken in Uzbekistan, where Elina spent the first seven years of her life - are helpful there.
Today at Barnard, having completed her pre-med requirements and most requirements for her major, Elina is thoroughly enjoying the classes she's taking for a minor in anthropology. Outside the classroom, she's into her third year as a leader in the New Student Orientation Program, and her fourth year on the intramural soccer team.
Meanwhile, her father and her sister are doing well, and Elina is positive about the progress being made in MS research. "Working at the center and seeing what's done every day gives me hope. It makes me very optimistic," she says.
Elina is the 2008-09 recipient of the George I. Alden Trust Scholarship Fund.
—Anne Schutzberger
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