The South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics (GSSM) Foundation announces a new collaborative with Roche Carolina, Roche Mannheim and the Johanna Wittum School in Germany to create the Research Exchange Scholars Program: A Roche International Science Education Initiative (RESP).

The program, which is being launched with support from research- based healthcare company Roche, provides six- week internships abroad beginning June 5 with three GSSM rising seniors traveling to Germany. The students, Emily Harruff of Columbia, Lily Elsner of Due West, and Alice Chang of Summerville, will live with local host families and conduct college- level research in areas including applied microbiology, botany, and cyto- and neurophysiology.

In August, three students from Germany's Johanna Wittum school, a high school specializing in biotechnology education, will travel to South Carolina, where they'll reside on GSSM's Hartsville campus and work as research interns alongside established professors at the University of South Carolina whose projects cover a broad spectrum of topics in cell and molecular biology.

GSSM students have engaged in scientific research for the past 20 years through the school's nationally recognized Summer Program for Research Interns (SPRI) — a graduation requirement for all rising seniors. SPRI allows students to spend six weeks in corporate R&D labs across the state or at research universities such as USC, Clemson University, and the Medical University of South Carolina, under the direct supervision of mentor scientists.

During the internship, students conduct research on a college graduate level in fields in which they have a specific interest such as cancer research, biomedical experiments, alternate fuels, or computer science.

Until now, students have been paired with university and corporate labs in the United States only and primarily in South Carolina. International research has long been a key objective of GSSM's strategic growth plan.

Thanks to the new RESP initiative and Roche's support, GSSM is now able to take the strength of one of its finest programs and expand it to provide intriguing research opportunities abroad for South Carolina's best and brightest students.

Both GSSM and the Johanna Wittum School are located near well- established Roche sites: The pharmaceutical production site in Florence, S.C. and the diagnostic and pharmaceutical facilities in Mannheim, Germany.