Three local students and 25 others from Southern California are spending their summer doing hands-on science research projects at top universities as part of the Amgen Scholars program.

•Chantalle Le from Thousand Oaks is participating at Howard University. She is interested in a biotechnology career.

She was a member of Westlake High School's Advanced Anatomy class and president of the National Honor Society.

She has also volunteered at both the Los Robles Hospital and the Westminster Free Clinic.

•Rohit Madakshire from Camarillo is participating at UC San Diego.

•Jonathan Reuter from Agoura Hills is participating at UCLA to explore a possible research topic for his graduate studies.

He was part of team Athena that won second place in the 2007 Qualcomm Innovator Challenge, which gave the participants 24 hours to design and present an innovative platform for Qualcomm's new Snapdragon chipset.

The Amgen Scholars Program partner universities host undergraduates from across the nation who undertake research projects with the guidance of faculty mentors in fields such as biology, bioengineering and chemistry.

Additionally, all of the Amgen Scholars attended a three-day symposium at UCLA to discuss their research projects and hear from leading scientists in academia and industry, including scientists and researchers from Amgen.

Amgen scholars have a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or above.

The program is a $27.5 million eight-year initiative which provides undergraduates the opportunity to explore their particular area of research beyond what they may be able to do in their regular undergraduate education.

In 2009, more than 260 Amgen Scholars were selected from more than 4,000 applications.

For more information about Amgen Scholars or an application, visit www.amgenscholars.com.