Matthew Brumm: Broad Horizons

When senior biology major Matthew Brumm chose Duke over universities nearer to his native Nebraska, he was seeking to broaden his horizons and meet new people. Little did he know how immediately his broadening experience would begin -- as he was whisked off to Russia only the second month of his freshman year. Despite his long-time interest in biology, Brumm had chosen the freshman FOCUS program on Russia.

"I was a debater in high school, and my senior year the topic was changing United States foreign policy toward Russia," he said. "And so I had just spent an entire year every weekend in debate tournaments talking about Russian foreign policy. I thought since I was already on that kick, I might as well take some classes on it."

But the Russia FOCUS program offered even more than classes, he discovered.

"They sent me this letter saying if you can pay for your visa, we'll take you there. And you don't have to speak Russian because all your professors do and half your classmates do." Thus, the freshman joined his classmates to explore the old-world elegance of St. Petersburg, with its Winter Palace, Hermitage museum, brooding statues of Lenin and marble- and chandelier-decorated subways. "It was great," Brumm said.

Brumm's biology courses offered just as seminal an educational experience, leading him into the rewarding realm of undergraduate research. In particular, he cites the developmental biology and molecular genetics course taught by associate professor of biology Amy Bejsovec and instructor Alyssa Perz-Edwards.

"It's a great course because it's taught in an LSRC lab funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which features research-grade equipment," said Brumm. In the course, the budding scientists explored the development of the range of organisms that scientists use as model systems -- including fruit flies, frogs, chicks, fish and the plant Arabidopsis.

"That lab was probably one of the best courses I took at Duke," said Brumm. "It was an amazing experience. There were only about six people in the class, and you have an entire lab to yourself, with a Ph. D. and a graduate student always in the lab. And the professor would come down every day to talk to you. When things weren't working out, you always had someone right there to help."

Such encouragement, and a fascination with the genetics of fruit flies, inspired Brumm to join Bejsovec's laboratory to do research. There, he studied the complex biological machinery of how a specific set of genes control the development of the outer covering, or cuticle, in fruit fly embryos. In humans, defects in corresponding genes are associated with some cancers.

Brumm credits his research experience with Bejsovec as a keystone of his Duke experience. Unlike courses, in which the reward is merely a grade, research rewards its practitioners with a personal sense of achievement, Brumm said.

"You want to actually make your project work, so it is important to get it right," he said. "When you are forced to sit down and think about how to do your project, you learn a lot more about the scientific method, how to do research.

"Some of my most valuable experiences in biology weren't in any of my classes; it was working in the lab," said Brumm.

Brumm also committed himself to telling his fellow classmates about Duke's scientific achievements, working for four years as a writer and editor for The Chronicle. His quest for stories took him from local elementary schools, where he interviewed students learning to read, to the office of Chancellor for Health Affairs Ralph Snyderman, where they discussed the future of medicine. With Snyderman and the other medical center researchers he interviewed during his Duke journalism career, he found a welcoming environment.

"It was amazing how interested they were in their research," he said. "You would start talking to them and they would be so excited that someone else was taking an interest in their work and the potential effects it would have on human biology and on just pure science."

Continuing his interest in history, he concentrated on courses about Germany and the Soviet Union under Hitler and Stalin. "For some reason that area of history really fascinates me -- how both those nations in World War II, under the guise of a very strong ruler, completely transformed themselves into countries that perpetrated such terrible deeds." Understanding the historical lessons of such countries, said Brumm, will enable today's nations to avoid the tragic mistakes of the past.

All his Duke experiences, from his biology and history classes to his research and journalism, will send him on to his next challenge -- medical school -- with a sense of mission and idealism.

"As a future physician I'll be very interested in looking at specific interventions that may change human health," he said. In particular, Brumm said he has been influenced by Snyderman's advocacy of transforming the health care system to emphasize preventive medicine.

"If we could prevent people from actually developing such diseases as diabetes or heart disease, we would save not only a lot of money but more importantly people would have a better quality of life," he said.