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Magda Piaseczna is a UBC student who has
worked for the past three summers as a research associate at the BC
Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. She is currently in her fourth
year at the Centre and is assisting with both the Vanguard Project
and the Vancouver HIV Vaccine Trial.
Magda started working at the Centre
for Excellence in May 1997 as a research assistant for Bob Hogg,
having finished her first undergraduate year in the Faculty of
Sciences at UBC.
In addition to research, Magda worked
in the lab at the Centre for Excellence in the summer of 1998,
learning about and performing DNA and RNA sequencing. In the summer
of 1999, Magda wrote her first correspondence on the adverse effects
of protease inhibitors, which was published later that year in The
British Columbia Medical Journal.
Looking for a way to experience the
world and learn about South American culture, Magda recently spent a
month doing outreach work in Venezuela. She travelled with 10 other
people and stayed in three very different areas of the country.
Having recently graduated from UBC
with a BSc in Biopsychology, Magda returned to the Centre for
Excellence, where she is once again involved in writing research
papers on such topics as mortality rates due to HIV/AIDS,
co-infection of hepatitis C and HIV and sexual risk-taking
behaviours among gay and bisexual men.
Her main project this summer is
updating a paper on the incidence of AIDS-defining illnesses in the
HIV/AIDS Drug Treatment Program and she is also working for the
Vancouver HIV Vaccine Trial, as Marieke Steenstra is on maternity
leave.
"My time at St. Paul's, and now
with the Vaccine Trial, has really opened my eyes," says Magda.
"I have learned so much here. I know that's one of the major
reasons I love coming back year after year."
Magda is planning on returning to her
studies in the fall and is currently putting together her
application to medical school for September of 2001.
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