“AN EXPERIMENT,” says Toby Bothwell, “is a lot like running. Some things work, and some don’t. You have to try different approaches to optimize your results.”
Bothwell should know. In 2009, his senior year at Westmoore High School, he was named the Gatorade Oklahoma Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year for a season that included titles at several statewide invitational meets and a runner-up finish at the Class 6A state meet. Meanwhile, with a perfect 36 on his ACT and a stellar academic record, he also emerged from a field of nearly 100 applicants to earn 1 of 12 spots in OMRF’s 2010 class of Sir Alexander Fleming Scholars.
As a Fleming Scholar, he spent the summer working under the guidance of Dr. Susan Kovats. Accustomed to front-running both as an athlete and a student (he graduated first in his high school class), Bothwell found himself in an unfamiliar position at OMRF: struggling to keep up. “There were no immunology classes in high school, so the lab was like a whole other world. I’d never been pushed mentally like that before.”
Bothwell’s Fleming project was a far cry from the biology classes he’d aced at Westmoore. At OMRF, his work involved studying why autoimmune diseases are more prevalent in women than men. In particular, he examined whether certain sex-linked hormones might contribute to the development of illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis, where the body mistakenly turns the weapons of the immune system against itself.
The science was dizzying, and at first it overwhelmed Bothwell. But, he told himself, “I can do this.” His laboratory colleagues gave him a crash course in immunology that, he says, he “absorbed like a sponge.” Soon, he was culturing cells, working with genetically modified mice and tossing around phrases like “increased cell survivability” and “upregulation of langerin.” He concluded his summer at OMRF by producing a research abstract that analyzed the effect a pair of chemicals had on the development of certain cells crucial to the body’s immune response.
Now attending the University of Arkansas on a full academic scholarship, the 19-year-old freshman remains as competitive as ever. He’s double majoring in physics and mathematics, and he’s running for a cross country program that has won 11 NCAA team titles. On a Razorback team filled with national-caliber talent, Bothwell often finds himself “in the back, hanging on. It’s a challenge just to keep up.”
He hopes one day to make the varsity. But Bothwell’s experience as a Fleming Scholar helped him set a longer-term goal. “I’d like to become a scientist and have a lab of my own one day,” he says. Of course, he’ll bring his racing mentality to research. “I’m super-competitive. So you know I’ll want to have the best lab in the building.”
