06/05/2013 01:26:00 PMIrán Román, a senior majoring in biology, music theory and German, wants to discover which genes play key roles in diseases such as cancer, HIV and diabetes. Cover StoriesWriting and Journalism, 1920sDepartment of Englishstory Irán Román, a senior majoring in biology, music theory and German, wants to discover which genes play key roles in diseases such as cancer, HIV and diabetes. He earned a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Exceptional Research Opportunities Program grant to research genetics and cellular biology at Stanford University this summer. He was among 20 students chosen to attend Stanford to train as the next generation of leaders in biological research under Tim Stearns, associate professor of biology and genetics. Román and Stearns' research will use yeast as a model organism and molecular techniques to study human genes. Román will present his research at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute headquarters.