Members of the next generation of biomedical researchers and health care professionals spent three weeks training at Sanford Burnham Prebys
On Friday, July 24, 2026, the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute community celebrated the contributions of five high school student interns from the Preuss School. Located on the University of California San Diego campus in La Jolla, the Preuss School educates students striving to be first-generation college graduates.
Participants in the Preuss summer internship program gained valuable hands-on research experience over three weeks. This program is generously funded by Debby and Wain Fishburn.
“For many high school students, biomedical research is something very new to them,” said Yuk-Lap (Kevin) Yip, PhD, associate director of training and education in the NCI-designated Cancer Center at Sanford Burnham Prebys, during the July 24 capstone presentation.
“Over the summer, our five outstanding interns gained hands-on experience as scientists and began to understand why we are so excited about the work we do.”
Graduate student Joshua Minyard introduced the interns and invited them to discuss why they wanted to participate in the program.
“I was looking to test the waters for a potential future career in biomedical research,” said intern Derek Arista.
“I thought this would be a great opportunity to work in a laboratory and deepen my knowledge as I’m considering going into the medical field,” said intern Hailey Villa.
The interns then presented the findings from their three weeks of conducting experiments. In addition to sharing how cancerous tumors in different tissues affected fruit flies, the interns also detailed what they learned about drug discovery research.
“We worked with our mentor Josh Minyard to target a protein called STK4 that is known for allowing leukemia cells to survive,” said intern Eliud Tapia.
The interns tested three different drugs as potential inhibitors of STK4. They found that one of the three was the most successful inhibitor and was effective at lower concentrations.
Katya Marchetti, a graduate student and scientific leader of the 2025 and 2026 Pruess internship programs, provided closing remarks following the interns’ capstone presentation.
“I chose to commit to running this program because eight years ago, almost to the day, I was in these interns’ shoes,” said Marchetti. “I was a high school student participating in the summer research program that completely changed the trajectory of my life.
“You should be incredibly proud of what you’ve accomplished, not just because of the data that you’ve collected, but because of how much you’ve grown. Whether or not you decide to stay in science or pursue something completely different, I hope you know that you are capable of doing hard things, because you just proved it.”
The Preuss summer internship program at Sanford Burnham Prebys has operated since 2009 and is jointly organized by the NCI-designated Cancer Center and Office of Learning and Development. This program’s founding was supported by donors Peggy and Peter Preuss, and Debby and Wain Fishburn.