A cousin's battle with leukemia led Courtney Mangus to seek an education at the Wayne State University School of Medicine and acceptance into a year-long fellowship with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute-National Institutes of Health Research Scholars Program.

Also known as the Cloister Program, the fellowship was established in 1985 to give outstanding students at U.S. medical schools the opportunity to receive research training at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. This year the program accepted 42 students who are interested in receiving elite research training and who have demonstrated an interest in pursuing a research-driven career. The fellowship offers a year-long immersion research experience at the National Institutes of Health sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Students live, conduct research and attend lectures at the NIH campus. The first month students may rotate among labs they find attractive, and then spend the year working with a principal investigator at a lab of their choosing.

Mangus, 25, is a third-year medical student from Orchard Lake, Mich. She completed her undergraduate work at Albion College.

During the summer of 2007, Mangus spent two months at the National Cancer Institute/NIH conducting a research project related to the role of IGF-R in the pathology and treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer of skeletal muscle cells that often affects younger children. As an undergraduate, she spent a summer at the Karmanos Cancer Institute investigating folate metabolism and genetic mutation in Down Syndrome and associated myeloproliferative disorders.

While Mangus has been interested in medicine since childhood, the treatment of a family member caused that spark to ignite.

"My interest grew in high school when my young cousin was diagnosed with leukemia. I accompanied him on his chemo visits and shadowed his primary oncologist on several occasions," she explained. "Eventually, I pursued a pre-med concentration in college and then applied to medical school. My cousin is now in remission and healthy."

That experience has led to her ongoing pursuit of a career in pediatric oncology. After graduation, Mangus wants to pursue a residency in pediatrics, followed by a fellowship in hematology-oncology. Her goal is a career that combines patient care and scientific research.

During her first and second years of medical school, Mangus was involved in Amigos Medicos, first as a member, then as director of Language Education. The student organization seeks to improve the health and well-being of underserved members of the local Hispanic population by providing free health education in the community as well as Spanish language instruction for future physicians. She also volunteered at Children's Hospital through the Arie Foundation and Pediatric Interest Group, an outreach program dedicated to helping children with cancer. Additionally, she served as a volunteer translator (Spanish-English) at Covenant Community Clinic in Detroit.

Mangus selected the School of Medicine because of its "outstanding reputation for clinical education and training." Also, she was eager to train in an urban environment, and her grandfather, John Ronayne, graduated from the School of Medicine in 1950, and "was an excellent physician."