In the beginning, senior Hetvi Solanki was unsure if she wanted to major in genetics or biochemistry, the two often going hand-in-hand. One thing Hetvi wasn’t on the fence about was where to purse her higher education. She loves the small town feel of Clemson while there also being so many unique people around.
“Genetics was the right choice for me because I would be able delve deep into a specialized field and also relate it to human diseases.”
Hetvi feels at home in the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, knowing most of the people in all her classes, which is something she truly appreciates – being able to go through this major alongside a mini community within the larger Clemson community.
“Our professors are wonderful – some of my favorites have been Dr. [Jennifer] Mason and Dr. [Heidi] Anderson.”
On campus, Hetvi in involved in a few extracurricular activities, one of them being serving on the executive board of the Clemson University Period Project, a nonprofit organization that collects and donates period products by donation events as well as delivery drop-offs to various locations.
“We are a club dedicated to providing menstrual products to those in need as well as educating students on women’s health and period poverty.”
She is also a part of the Health Professions Advising Ambassador Program, where advisors prepare prospective and current students as well as alumni interested in pursuing careers in the chiropractic medicine, dentistry, medicine, optometry, pharmacy, physical assistant, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech language pathology fields.
“In this role I get to be a student guide for a physician at the annual Tigers on Call event and mentor other pre-medical undergraduate students.”
In addition to Hetvi’s extracurricular participation, she is also involved in Dr. Yanzhang Wei’s lab from Biological Sciences, where investigates a bifunctional fusion protein’s ability to prevent T-cell exhaustion and engage Natural Killer cells in tumors.
“I specifically work with a breast cancer cell line and my experience with this lab has really increased my confidence as a researcher and taught me valuable skills like cell culture, transfections and a number of different assays.”
With all this undergraduate experience, Hetvi plans to pursue a career in medicine.
“I am specifically interested in pediatrics at the moment but am open to exploring other specialties!”
Hetvi is from a small town in SC called Andrews near the coast and enjoys spending time with my family and friends and going to local coffee shops.
