Middle school students from West Liberty and Columbus Junction participated in the Project HOPE (Healthcare Occupations Preparation and Exploration) event on May 19, 2025, on the University of Iowa campus.

Project HOPE is a STEM-based curricular intervention that integrates academic and vocational opportunities designed to connect minority and socioeconomic middle school students to the health science professions early in their education. The students visited the UI campus to experience career simulations of various healthcare and research occupations. Activities in the University of Iowa Department of Biology included students learning about genetic models of human disease using the model system, Caenorhabditis elegans, and understanding how protein aggregation is regulated in normal development and how it may be mis-regulated in disease. The Biology sessions were led by Biology professors Jan Fassler and Bryan Phillips; Integrated Biology Graduate Program students Emily Hirsch and Daniela Santos Da Mata, both from the Phillips Lab, and Postdoctoral Research Scholar Tara Hicks (Fassler Lab).