URBANA — There have been other summers for fun, but Monticello High School student Jacob Hanselman will be able to remember this summer as the one when he came to the University of Illinois every day, put on a white lab coat and helped do cancer research.

Really.

"These are all new experiments we don't know the answers to," said Brendan Harley, a UI professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering who leads a cancer research team of graduates and undergraduates — and for two months this summer, also one high school student.

Hanselman, who will be entering his senior year in the fall, was one of 34 high school juniors to be selected by the American Cancer Society's Illinois Division to intern this summer with cancer research experts throughout the state. Hanselman was the only applicant placed at the UI.

Cancer society spokeswoman Shayne Squires said there were more than 300 applicants for this program.

"It was quite a tough program to get into," Harley said.

The internships are intended to give some of the state's top students some firsthand experience in what a career in science would be like, in particular, in cancer research, according to cancer society.

Students also attend lectures and give presentations. Hanselman gave his first presentation on the UI campus last Thursday and will make a presentation to the cancer society in Chicago at the end of his internship in August, he said.

Captain of his school's soccer team and a trumpet player in marching band, Hanselman said he's interested in an engineering career and has loved his summer work in the lab.

Cancer research interests him, he said, and, he also knew going into the program that his eight-week internship would look good on a resume one day.

But here are some of the things he's learned along the way this summer: If you have a dream and want it enough (like getting into this program) you can "achieve practically anything," he says.

Working in a lab involves a lot of one-on-one time with himself, dealing with things that both work out and don't work out, and requires patience, he said.

"You can't just jump from a first thought to a conclusion," he said. "You can't just jump from point A to point B," he said.

Harley, who had leukemia when he was Hanselman's age, said he focuses his research on leukemia and developing biomaterials that can be implanted to regenerate tissues, or that can be used outside the body to study rare cell processes, such as how cancers develop.

Harley said the American Cancer Society funded his research to build an artificial bone marrow, but along the way his team members discovered one of the biomaterial tools they developed could also be used to study cancer cell behavior.

Hanselman has done a great job with his team this summer, Harley said.

Specifically, he said, Hanselman has been studying how the physical properties of the biomaterial surrounding brain cancer cells affects their growth. These experiments are helping build the foundation of a next generation of his research studying tumor grown, he said.

The intern program benefits both students and research team and gives him a chance to have an impact on students considering a science career, Harley said.

"We need to keep inspiring the next generation of students," he said.