Kimberly Jorge is a second-year undergraduate student at the University of California – Los Angeles studying Human Biology and Society. At UCLA, Kimberly conducts research in the Dr. Hayes Lab. The Hayes Lab is interested in lung cancer to see how unknown variants make cells oncogenic and how different targets affect sensitivity and resistance to current treatments. Dr. Hayes’ lab is fairly new and this year was primarily focused on acquiring background information on cancer and organizing/getting the lab space together. Kimberly is continuing in the summer with the Hayes lab and will be starting a project testing these unknown variants. She will identify observed variants from preliminary cancer genomics databases. Using the EGFR variants found, she will clone them in validation plasmids and then over-express them in non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. These cell lines will then be tested in growth assays to determine their sensitivity to targeted therapies. Lastly, she would like to thank the CARE Fellows program for the opportunity to gain support in her research experience. Also a grand thank you to Dr. Hayes for allowing her the opportunity to become part of her lab as well as being a great model and mentor.