July 21, 2025
For Laura Neal it was the one-two punch in her childhood of a nerve injury that has lingered as chronic pain and a viral infection that has become a chronic source of fatigue. For Jonathan Palmiero, the inspiration to do science and engineering research derived from the combination of discovering that he is capable of lucid dreaming and a very different wonder: his six years of service aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson operating its nuclear reactor systems.
Many life experiences can spark the motivation to become a scientist or engineer, but for a career to begin, that motivation must be coupled with experience and exposure to doing research. To help students around the country gain that opportunity, every summer Picower Institute labs open their doors to participants in the MIT Summer Research Program in Biology and Neuroscience (MSRP-Bio). The program serves undergraduates whose backgrounds (including veteran status or disability) might have limited their research exposure, or whose home institutions don’t have major research programs.
MSRP-Bio students spend 10 weeks working side-by-side with graduate student or postdoc mentors and present a poster of their research in early August. Along the way they meet with MIT faculty members and come together as a community making new friends and connections. This year Picower labs are hosting seven students.
In all, 102 MSRP-Bio students have worked in Picower Institute labs since 2003. Of those, 93 completed their undergraduate studies and 47 went on to enroll in PhD programs including 10 at MIT and many more at other schools such as Cornell, Yale, Stanford, and Princeton and Johns Hopkins. Another 11 have gone to medical school, and 11 others enrolled in MD/PhD programs. Three have earned master’s degrees. The rest are either still undergrads, are studying as post-baccalaureates or went straight into the workforce after earning their bachelor’s degree.
From oceans to organoids
Originally from the northern suburbs of New York City, Palmiero’s naval service took him across the Pacific to Guam and Japan. But what captivated him the most about his rigorous training and work as a nuclear electronics technician was how something that started at the scale of the atom cold grow to power something as massive as an aircraft carrier.
In 2022, when Palmiero left the Navy and enrolled at Marist University back in New York, he wanted to combine that technological inspiration with the fascination that lucid dreaming has given him regarding the mind.
“I was able to become aware that I was in a dream and control that state of consciousness to the point where my mind at night became a sort of sandbox where I could be creative and marvel at the extent of what the mind is capable of,” Palmiero said.
At Marist, where he is now a rising senior, he’s studying biochemistry, but there isn’t a neuroscience program. So to learn more about the brain he searched out summer programs, found MSRP-Bio, applied, and was accepted.
This summer Palmiero has been working in the lab of Picower Institute director Li-Huei Tsai with postdoc Guang Xu. He selected Tsai’s lab because he wanted to work with human cell cultures and he wanted to learn how large labs are led. Tsai’s lab is a world leader in modeling Alzheimer’s disease in complex 3d tissue cultures called “organoids” or “mini-brains.” To grow these cultures, a donor’s skin cells are reprogrammed to become induced pluripotent stem cells and those are then biochemically coaxed from that open-ended stage to become a variety of brain cell types. Engineered with an Alzheimer’s associated gene variant, such as APOE4, an organoid can reveal how the mutation disrupts brain physiology. Much like atoms can power massive ships, Palmiero noted, a single misplaced nucleotide in brain cells can disrupt a complex system of billions of cells.
“I can’t help but draw a parallel there,” he said.
Using the organoids, Palmiero’s project is investigating how the brain’s immune cells, called microglia, affect the process of myelination, in which neurons become insulated with fat (like an electrical wire is clad in plastic) to improve signal transmission.
“I wasn’t exposed to neuroscience until this summer and I have to say it’s met all of my expectations and exceeded them,” he said. “Being immersed in exactly what I was looking for is such a gift and it has really cemented my interest in the field.”
Now Palmiero is looking ahead to graduate school where he foresees a way to bring interests in engineering and neuroscience full circle to help people in need. He hopes to study brain-computer interfaces in which electronics can provide a way to acquire and translate brain signals for assistive devices, for instance to help a paralyzed person use a computer or control a wheelchair, or even regain motility via closed-loop interfaces. Ultimately, he wants to use science to heal.
Searching for answers
Growing up in Norway, Laura Neal struck her teachers early on as a future doctor. But after an accident at age 10 caused nerve damage that refused to subside, Neal became frustrated that her doctors were unable to treat or even diagnose the problem. Five years later, fate doubled down on the medical mysteries she has had to endure. Much like some people have suffered from Long Covid, a postviral condition left her only able to walk short distances before needing a wheelchair. She realized that science, not medicine, was the path to finding answers.
“I realized I would hate to be a doctor because I would have to tell people we don’t have the knowledge that we need to help you,” she said. “I thought, why would I spend my day helping one person when I could be out there creating the knowledge that we need, and indirectly help so many more.”
Two years ago, when Neal graduated from her internationally-focused high school UWC Red Cross Nordic, she had the opportunity to apply to certain colleges in the United States. The state of Minnesota felt like a comfortable fit, so she chose Macalaster College, where she’s a rising junior. Macalester’s small but strong biology and neuroscience program has provided her with research opportunities, but to expand her horizons she looked for a summer research experience at MIT. In particular, she wanted to join a lab with graduate students, which Macalester doesn’t have, so that she could learn how to follow that path.
“Ultimately I want to be a professor. I want to have my own lab and to teach students,” Neal said. “This summer I’m really learning about graduate school applications. When I came to college and met my first professor that was the first time I met anyone who has a PhD. Here at MIT I’m surrounded by people who have done it. So I’m learning and I am taking many notes.”
With particular interests in chronic pain, the interaction between the nervous and immune systems, and ultimately the brain’s relationship with the body, Neal chose The Picower Institute lab of Associate Professor Gloria Choi, a leading scholar of neuroimmune interactions. With postdoc Mengyang Feng, Neal is studying the hypothesis that “tuft” cells in the gut, which detect pathogens and trigger an immune response, are also capable of modulating feeding and anxiety behaviors. Using mouse models, she’s imaging gut tissue and using machine learning to analyze the images.
Graduate school is still two years away, but Neal said she has enjoyed and become inspired by her work at Macalester and MIT. She said she plans to apply to programs both in Europe and the U.S. when the time comes.
As they look ahead to careers in research, Neal and Palmiero are strengthening their resolve and their resumes with a summer in The Picower Institute via MSRP-Bio.