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Silvia Caballero
When Silvia Caballero moved to Manhattan from Peru at age 16, she spent two months in an English-intensive transition school before growing frustrated with the slow pace. Though she'd had just a few previous lessons, Caballero said she "had a feeling I could put in a little effort and go to a regular school." She transferred to the Hostos-Lincoln Academy of Science, a public school in the Bronx, and learned English on her own. By the time she graduated, she was tutoring native English speakers in reading and writing.
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Silvia Caballero
Hunter College
New York, NY
Photo: Matthew Septimus
A high-resolution photograph is available on request.
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As a freshman at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York, Caballero hesitated about studying biochemistry. But the stories she heard as a sophomore in her introductory biology course about scientists' efforts to understand and treat disease fascinated her. "I fell in love with biology and discovery," she said, and began working in Laurel Eckhardt's immunology lab at Hunter investigating the genes that encode antibodies and control their expression.
Her first experiment there was nearly her last, however. Her assignment was to use a technique called Southern blotting to confirm that a hybrid mouse carried a particular gene modification, but her experiment failed time after time. "No one knew why," she said. "I could not help but think I was not talented enough for research." However, she talked through the problem with Eckhardt, and tried one more time. Finally, it worked. "That feeling when I finally got the results we were expecting... I felt that I could do anything. It made me realize that in order to succeed in research, a tremendous ability to persevere is critical," she said.
When school let out that June, she traveled across Long Island to spend the summer doing cancer research at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she used mouse embryonic stem cells to validate a gene's suspected role as a tumor suppressor. According to Caballero, her experiences at Hunter and CSHL taught her a lot about doing science in an academic setting, but also frustrated her because they lacked a direct connection to patients. "So far, I didn't have an experience where I could fully explore my interest in infectious diseases, the very thing that got me interested in immunology in the first place," she said.
So the next year, when Caballero was nominated to take part in the HHMI Exceptional Research Opportunities Program (EXROP) – which offers students from disadvantaged backgrounds the chance to gain experience in the labs of HHMI investigators and professors – she decided to work in an environment closer to patients, on a project with huge implications: AIDS research. Exploring the ways HIV-1 suppresses human T cells in HHMI investigator Bruce Walker's lab at Massachusetts General Hospital was an eye-opening experience for her. "I didn't know that [researchers] could have such a close impact on patients", she said. "I realized there was no detachment between science and medicine."
Now in her final year at Hunter, Caballero, 22, plans to take a year off to further her research interests and then obtain a Ph.D. in either immunology or virology. She said her experience with Walker convinced her to focus on translating research discoveries into clinical treatments. "To help people—I think that should be the focus of research," she said.
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