My name is Laura Heintzelman and I am a member of the first class of Biomedical Scholars. I was born in Virginia but moved to Maryland before I began school. I graduated from Albert Einstein High School before coming to Montgomery College. This past summer I worked at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) with my mentor Dr. Ewen Kirkness. While there, my responsibilities included extract, purifying and cloning tomato DNA. I hope to work at TIGR again this coming summer. I am plan on transferring to a four year university in the fall were I hope to receive a Bachelors of Science. I am interested in pursuing a career in the genetics field.