Jayne says that the commitment required during the screening process ensures that about 95 percent of subjects assigned to a study complete their stays. Subjects are free to quit anytime.
"I've come across a lot of college students who need the money, and they've convinced their professors to give them school work for a week. They always work it out," says Jayne.
On the other hand, Jayne said that elderly subjects usually participate for the sake of the companionship of the technicians. "They're usually very lonely," he says.
Jayne cites the clinical contact with subjects as one of the benefits of working in the lab. Huynh says he spent a lot of time with subjects. "I played Monopoly with them or just talked to them, to get their life story or something. They [the researchers] told us not to get into political arguments so their [subjects'] temperatures wouldn't be shooting up."
Blind people, says Jayne, are recruited nationally and are often interested more specifically in contributing to research. "They stay on their own time zone and won't have jet lag at all--only what we might induce," says Jayne.
Wan-yin Wu '97 worked with blind subjects during the summer of 1994.
"All the people we chose were retinally blind. Some of them were actually still able to be entrained with exposure to bright light. However, many other blind people have trouble sleeping. People with artificial eyes could not be entrained at all," Wu says.
"We brought them in on five separate visits, for five days each. We wanted to monitor them at different times in their cycle, to monitor the progression of their cycle. The first day was for getting accustomed to the lab and was a regular day. The second day, we started the light therapy. [This meant] turning it up very bright, then turning it off for brief periods of time. We would get blood drawn every hour to see how hormone levels change," Wu says.
Getting Involved
Harvard students can participate in circadian rhythm research in three ways: They can apply for a Nathariel Kleitman Fellowship, work as a work/study lab technician or volunteer as subjects in a study. The Kleitman Fellowship is a summer program founded by Megan E. Jewett '87, a resident tutor at Currier House, to honor the American researcher to first discover REM sleep.
"I wanted to create a program in which students would get the experience of being actual scientists in both the technical side of running experiments and the intellectual and academic side," Jewett says. "This involves understanding how to design protocols to answer specific research questions and critiquing current research available, presenting their finding, and writing a technical, scientific paper."
Sheri K. Green '96, who spent the summer of 1994 as a Kleitman fellow, says, "I would advocate the fellowship as a good experience for pre-meds. It's a great way to spend the summer. You get paid, you get clinical experience, and you get to work with Dr. Czeisler." Green received a $1,500 stipend for her work.
"This year there are people applying from all over the country so it's going to be a lot bigger," she says.
Stemmle, who spent two summers as a Kleitman fellow in 1994 and 1995, echoes Green's recommendation. "It was a really good experience for what research is really like, for what your daily life is if you're a researcher," she says. "I decided in the end that primary care is going to be more for me."
Huynh, who as a technician had less input into the research process, says, "It was interesting at first but after a while everything got very repetitive and menial...I usually had the night shift so I didn't really see anyone."