UCLA senior Saul Villeda has won a national award for his research on the spinal cord, and is publishing his work in major scientific journals. His professors praise his work, and expect him to thrive in a career in research. Why has research become his passion?

"When you're in the lab, it's your project, and no one gives you instructions on how to do it," said Villeda, who is majoring in physiological science. "You talk with your professor and graduate students, and you get ideas, but you have to come up with something new. That entices me. You get to think.

"Doing research is like finding a piece of a puzzle, but you have no idea what the puzzle looks like. As the pieces form together, you start getting a picture, and you want to find those pieces as fast as you can and solve the puzzle. I love it."

Villeda's parents are from Guatemala. He was born in East Los Angeles, grew up in Pasadena, and went to Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, where he was valedictorian. His father works as a bus driver, and his mother has worked as a nurse's assistant.

"My father wanted me to be a doctor - my parents understand lawyer, doctor, engineer - but now he's really supportive of my research," said Villeda, who has tutored UCLA students in calculus.

How good a researcher is Villeda?

"Saul's exceptional," said Patricia Phelps, his faculty mentor and UCLA associate professor of physiological science. "He's creative, original, extremely enthusiastic, and thinks way beyond his years in terms of experimental design. I expect him to be very successful."

"Saul is a born leader, and his enthusiasm is contagious," said Elma Gonzalez, UCLA professor of biology and director of UCLA's Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC), funded by the National Institutes of Health - a program in which Villeda is a fellow for the second consecutive year. "All MARC fellows look up to him. Saul has a brilliant future. He has the intelligence, enthusiasm, and the drive and commitment. He can go anywhere in the country for graduate school."Villeda won a national award for the best research poster in physiology at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in New Orleans last year. He plans to present his research findings at the neuroscience meeting in New Orleans this fall. He is a co-author of a published scientific paper in the Journal of Comparative Neurology, and will be the lead author of another scientific paper that he plans to submit to a major journal. He is also the recipient of scholarships for academic excellence.

It took Villeda some time to be comfortable viewing himself as a role model, but now he embraces the idea.

"I'm really proud to be a minority student in science, and to show that I can do every bit as well in research as another student," he said. "With research, it doesn't matter whether you're a minority; it's whether you have a heart and passion for it. We're capable. If we have the opportunities, we can do amazing science. I want to present more minorities with the option of research as a career. A lot of minority students don't know research is an option. We come from high schools that don't mention it."

Villeda's research is on the reeler spinal cord and pain. He studies a protein in the central nervous system called Reelin, which is involved in influencing neuronal migration. He found that Reelin and Dab1, a second protein that is part of the Reelin signaling pathway, are both found in the dorsal horn, an area that is involved with the sensation of pain. To date, he has found an error in the migration of these neurons and he suspects that this error will cause defects in the sensory connections in reeler mutants.

He works up to 30 hours a week in Phelps' lab, even more in the summer, and has learned valuable lessons from Phelps and the graduate students who work in her laboratory.

"Dr. Phelps is generous with her time," Villeda said. "She's always looking out for all of her students. She's a really big influence. If I have any questions on school, on life, on anything, I ask her for advice.

"I've learned from Dr. Phelps not to be afraid of taking chances. And don't sell yourself short. Challenge yourself. Do harder things. You can do them. Now I go into a class knowing I have the capability of doing well. That took time to develop.

"In high school, I didn't know what a Ph.D. was. I never would have thought of it had she not presented it as an option. Working in the lab is a lot of fun. I thought it was pretty radical that you can do research, teach, and get paid for it."

He has found patience to be a virtue in research.

"There are a lot of dead ends, and frustrations as well," he said. "But when you find something that actually works, it's exciting and makes it worthwhile. I was stuck for a couple of months, but I've also had a couple-month streak where everything falls into place. Even when an idea is wrong, it makes you think, ?What now?' You get creative and come up with other ideas to get around problems."You have to be patient, and creative. You have to see the beauty in what you're doing. Your project is your own personal masterpiece."

Ideas for his research can come from almost anywhere.

"One time, I was watching acrobats playing with fire in a Las Vegas show, when I thought of something for my project that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise," he said.

Villeda will graduate from the UCLA College in June, and then work toward his doctorate in neuroscience or developmental biology. He plans to apply to universities including UCLA, UC San Francisco and Harvard. He plans to be a professor with his own laboratory.

"I would love to work at a university with a large minority population," he said. "I would like to make a difference. I hadn't seen myself as a role model, but now I would like to go as high as I can go, and to encourage others to do research. I'm very excited about the future."

Villeda said the MARC program, which admits only half-a-dozen UCLA undergraduates each year, has been a tremendous help.

"I don't think I would be ready for graduate school if I hadn't done the MARC program and hadn't been in Dr. Phelps' lab," he said. "The funding has helped a lot. I had to ask my parents for money for books before, and now I don't have to ask them."

Villeda said he will have fond memories of his years at UCLA.

"UCLA has a lot of smart people, who raise the bar, and you have to raise yourself to meet the challenge," he said. "I've grown a lot. I have a lot easier time talking with people. I will have great memories of UCLA.

"One of the lessons I learned is you can make a difference being a scientist - a big difference."