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Hi.

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My name is Miranda Lee.

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I go by Lee generally, though.

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And I'm a senior
biochemistry major.

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This summer I worked out
at Sbarro Health Research

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Organization.

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It's located at Temple
University in Philadelphia, PA.

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It's a nonprofit
committed to researching

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the genetics of disease.

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It was founded by
an Italian scientist

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named Antonio Giordano, with
money from the CEO of Sbarro.

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Hence the name, like
a pizza company.

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Yes.

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[INAUDIBLE] And this is the
building where I worked.

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That's just a picture of
Temple University's campus.

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So I got this internship by
just emailing Dr. Giardano, who

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is this guy right
here in the middle,

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because I didn't
have any connections

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and I wasn't really
finding anything

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that I wanted through LyonNet.

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So I knew that I wanted to be
in Philadelphia for the summer,

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because I'm from the area.

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So I just looked
at research that

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was being done at different
campuses in Philly.

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I chose to email Dr. Giardano,
because I was really interested

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in the mission
statement of the SHRO.

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We talked about how
they're a non-profit,

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so they operate outside of
government funding and outside

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of academic brand funding, and
just receive private funding.

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And every dollar goes
straight to the research.

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And they also stated
that they have

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a commitment to training
young, new scientists, which

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I guess is where I came in.

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And so I thought
that, yeah, they would

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let me come work for them.

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And so I emailed Dr. Giardano.

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He got back to me
pretty quickly.

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He interviewed me on the phone
and offered me a position.

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At the time, I was considering
a couple other offers,

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a couple other positions, but
I had a really good feeling

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about him based on my
conversation with him.

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And I really thought that the
people there would be great.

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So I went to work with them,
and I was proven right.

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Dr. Marcella
Macaluso is this one.

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She's the one that I worked
with most closely day to day

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along with her PhD
student, Carlo.

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And in case you can't
tell from their names,

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they were all Italian,
every single one of them.

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So that was kind of
difficult sometimes,

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but I learned a lot about Italy.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So I'm not going to go into
detail about the research,

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really, but I wanted to give
you at least a general overview

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of what the organization
does and what I did.

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So Dr. Giardano is known
for discovering this tumor

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suppressor for the
gene called p130.

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It does a lot of different
things in the body,

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but basically, it controls
different protein levels

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in different kinds of cells.

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So a lot of the
research that the SHRO

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does centers around this
p130, because, I mean,

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it's his protein.

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So Dr. Macaluso's research
focuses on the role

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that P130 has in breast
cancer and eye disease.

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Both of them are linked
to weird levels of P130,

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and both are also linked
to hormone [INAUDIBLE]..

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That might seem kind
of weird at first.

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Like, it would make
sense that estrogen

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is involved in
breast cancer, but I

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think it's also really
implicated in eye disease

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and it has a lot more
roles in the body

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than you may actually realize.

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It's not just involved in
puberty and menopause, which

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is what I originally thought.

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So the project
that I worked on--

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wanting to know how
these two proteins--

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the names really
aren't important--

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but how these two
proteins that were also

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implicated in eye disease,
how they're connected to p130.

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And also, given the fact that
hormone imbalances are linked

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to these different
disease, we wanted

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to know how the hormone
levels impacted the expression

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of those two specific proteins.

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OK.

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So what did I do?

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Again, I'm not
going to really talk

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about this technical stuff, but
it's there if you're curious.

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A large part of the project
and a large part of my job

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was just cell culturing.

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I had to make sure
that we constantly

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had supplies of retinal
and corneal cells

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in order to do experiments on.

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So what I did with
that was I would

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be able to split them to grow
them in new Petri dishes,

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add hormone treatments like
progesterone and the estrogen

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that we were studying.

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Oh, and I had to change
the medium every 48 hours.

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And checking on them
was the first thing

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that I did every day
when I came into lab.

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I would have to go
there and make sure

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that they weren't infected,
which [INAUDIBLE] yellow.

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And that's actually
not my picture,

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but that's exactly what
the cells I worked with

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looked like.

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And make sure that
they were growing just

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under the microscope.

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And I though this
was really cool,

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because I got to work
with primary cells,

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which are non-genetically
modified cells taken directly

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from living tissue, whereas--

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I mean, we don't work with human
cells at all in labs at school.

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At least not as far
as I've experienced.

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And definitely not
primary cells, which--

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I thought it was really cool.

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So I was really glad to
have learned that skill.

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So I would do all this work
to keep these cells alive.

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And then we would kill them,
and take the proteins out,

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and separate the proteins,
and look for the ones

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that we were interested in.

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This whole experiment is
called a Western blot.

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The result would look something
like that bottom picture.

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And you may have seen that
before in your classes.

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But we can analyze
it qualitatively

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and just kind of say, this
band's darker than this band,

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so there's more protein there.

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Or quantitatively to put
numbers in just how dark it is,

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using a computer program.

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And this is not the
cleanest gel in the world.

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It's just the one that
I happened to have

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on my phone from the summer.

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But this is an example
of what we would get.

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So what we found
out is that estrogen

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does increase the levels
of those two proteins

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that we were interested
in and that p130

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regulates both of them at
a transcriptional level.

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I should have said there were
also other experiments that we

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did that focused more on the
protein-protein interactions,

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but I kind of observed
those and participated

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at a minimal level.

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And the Western blotting
and the protein cultures

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were my main job.

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But those other
experiments kind of

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showed also how p130 operates
at, like, a whole other level.

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So this experience really
increased my confidence

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in my technical lab skills and
my problem-solving ability.

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I ran, basically, like
a Western blot in a day,

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so it was a lot of protein
extraction and a lot of gels

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that I was running.

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And so I got really good at
it whereas in labs in classes,

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we kind of learn it once,
learn it twice, and then

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don't really delve into it.

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But doing the same
thing all summer

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meant that I really
understood the theory

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behind every single
thing that we did.

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And this meant that whenever
something went wrong,

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I actually knew how
to fix it, which

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was a really great feeling.

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If my proteins wouldn't
separate in the gel,

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I would just change the
concentration of the agars.

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If my cells got infected
in those Petri dishes,

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I could just regrow them.

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And a lot of the techniques
that I learned over the summer

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are applicable to
the research that I'm

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doing now for my independent
study for my thesis.

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So I worked with
Professor Jason Andras.

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Many of you know him.

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And we are researching
ant genetics.

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And these are our
little ant colonies.

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And this is the very first
PCR/gel that I ran in here.

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And it actually worked,
and I was really proud.

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Woo!

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And it was really nice
to know that I already

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had the skills to
do this, so I could

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jump right into the research
without having to learn

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all these basic skills.

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As far as for the future future,
I personally really liked

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academia.

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I'm a bit of an
introvert, so I really

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like being able
to do my own work

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and just have people that
I can reach out to and ask

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for help when I need it.

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So I do want to get my PhD
eventually, just not right

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away.

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The other thing that
I learned, though,

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is that the environment
that you're in

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makes a really big difference.

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The people that I worked
with were so supportive of me

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and so friendly.

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And they'd always make
sure I had what I needed.

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So overall, I was
really, really glad

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that I went with my gut feeling
and chose to work with the SHRO

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this summer.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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