All in the Family

Dr. Bharat B. Aggarwal stands alongside Ethan Swint, who was the seventh person in his family to participate in M. D. Anderson's summer science program.

The name Swint is synonymous with M. D. Anderson's Summer Program in Biomedical Sciences offered to recent graduates of Texas high schools.

Since Susan Brown Swint attended the first session in the summer of 1960, she and her physician-husband, Dr. Richard B. Swint, have proudly watched as all six of their children were accepted for the increasingly competitive program. Each of the six has entered - or is pursuing - a career in science or related fields.

"The entire family owes so much to the superior experiences we all received at M. D. Anderson," she notes.

Actually, Mrs. Swint has an even greater reason for being grateful because she met her future husband at M. D. Anderson during the summer of 1961. She had completed her freshman year at The University of Texas at Austin and was working in a biochemistry laboratory when she was introduced to Richard Swint, then a medical student also working at M. D. Anderson.

They married the next year.

He received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine, and she received her degree in biochemistry from UT-Austin in 1964. The couple moved to Paris, Texas, where Dr. Swint is a dermatologist.

"While I never actually worked as a biochemist, I know what I learned at M. D. Anderson has helped me in teaching Sunday School for high school and college students and most certainly in encouraging our children to consider careers in science," Mrs. Swint says.

Ethan Swint was the last of the six children to complete the program in the summer of 1997. He enjoyed "fascinating" laboratory experiences coordinated by Dr. Bharat B. Aggarwal, chief of the Cytokine Research Section in the Department of Molecular Oncology.

In the fall, Ethan went to Baylor University to major in engineering. His brother, Galen, who was in the M. D. Anderson program in 1995, is a junior studying computer sciences and physics at Baylor. Their older brother, Reuel, a summer science participant in 1992, is working toward his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois.

Liskin Swint Kruse was the first of the Swint siblings to come to M. D. Anderson, where she spent the summer of 1986. She earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and now works in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice University. Next came Erin Swint Edwards, who was at M. D. Anderson in 1988; she later received a Ph.D. in plant science and worked as a chemistry textbook editor. Lorin Swint Matthews, who was at M. D. Anderson in 1990, anticipates earning a Ph.D. in physics from Baylor this spring.

In 1977, the Carl B. and Florence E. King Foundation created a permanent endowment to support the Summer Program in Biomedical Sciences. The foundation has contributed more than $485,000 to the program, which accepts about 20 college-bound students from Texas high schools to spend eight weeks in M. D. Anderson laboratories each summer.

Nine years later, the King Foundation initiated a similar training program, which allows 10 secondary school science teachers to spend four weeks at M. D. Anderson learning about new scientific developments and research career opportunities. In 1991, a separate endowment was set up to ensure continuation of this program, which was named the Michael J. Ahearn Summer Workshop for High School Educators. It was so named to acknowledge the long-time leadership of Dr. Ahearn, associate vice president for academic affairs.

"The success of both programs is a tribute to the dedication of our faculty, who provide students and teachers alike a unique opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research and also to appreciate the scope of careers in biomedical sciences," Dr. Ahearn says.

As for the Swints' legacy, Dr. Ahearn smiled broadly when told that Liskin had recently presented her parents with their first grandchild, a boy named Kiel. He signals a new generation of summer science students, starting about the year 2016.

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