Veona Cutinho is a senior majoring in genomics and molecular genetics with a minor in mathematics at Michigan State University. She works in the Cellular Reprogramming Lab under Jose Cibelli and is the founder and editor-in-chief of SPARC, MSU’s first undergraduate-led academic journal. After graduation, she plans to pursue a doctorate in medical science at the University of Cambridge.
It takes a simple recipe to clone life.
Step 1: Remove the nucleus—the DNA—from an egg cell.
Step 2: Insert a donor nucleus of your choice.
Step 3: Watch as the cell divides, develops, and comes alive.
The simplicity of this recipe struck me as a high school student, sparking my (loyal) fascination with genetics. That initial curiosity for this subject has stayed with me ever since. Dr. Jose Cibelli wrote the paper outlining the process of cloning, and following his work led me, at 17, to Michigan State University. In my first semester at MSU, I reached out to him, and I’ve now been working in his lab for nearly three years.
Researching as a freshman is an atypical college experience, and it’s something uniquely possible at MSU. Over the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of working with remarkable mentors across various exciting fields—from epidemiology and public health to generating heart organoids to replace animal models, to designing my own protein tools to study disease—and yes, even cloning!
Here at MSU, I fell in love with learning with the idea of being a student for life. It instilled in me the utmost respect for academia and scholarship.
And the research wasn’t all MSU gave me. In just three years, I’ve presented at eleven conferences, spoken on six panels, and appeared on a scientific podcast. I’ve majored in Genomics and Molecular Genetics and minored in Mathematics, and I’ll graduate this spring in only six semesters.
But graduating early also means leaving behind my freshman-year friends and the class I started with. I worried—maybe too much—about being forgotten. I wanted to leave something behind—something that also captured the highlights of my MSU experience—the love for learning—and something I could give back to the community.
That “something” became SPARC: Student Papers in Academic Research Collaborative. SPARC was born from quiet questions: How can we make academia more exciting for undergraduates? How do we build a culture of curiosity?
I asked these questions with my close friend, Om Nair, and we founded SPARC to celebrate student success and ambition—a platform for undergraduates to share something they’ve created, discovered, or accomplished. Today, we are a team of only 13 students, yet we represent seven MSU colleges, come from nine different countries, and speak 16 languages. And together, we built MSU’s first undergraduate-led journal publication! We believe learning should be accessible. Research shouldn’t feel out of reach.
Through SPARC, I hope to pass on what I found here: not just a pathway to a Ph.D., but the joy of asking questions, seeking answers, and helping others fall in love with learning, too.
Because of that spark? It’s meant to be shared.
- Visit SPARC: www.sparcmsu.org
- SPARC inaugural issue: www.sparcmsu.org/publications
