<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I am currently a rising junior from the state of New Jersey. I'm looking to find a research mentor, particularly in molecular research regarding Alzheimer's. I fear that my high school's research facilities are not sufficient enough for me to conduct serious research that would be recognized. Therefore, I want to find a research mentor from a college/university lab, but I'm not sure how to approach them. I've done some research but I haven't been able to formulate a great list of professors to email. My school research teacher says that most professors would be very willing to help high school students, but is that really true? Also he says that in my letter of email, I should already have developed a research plan that I would pursue in the college lab (meaning that I need to know before hand what enzyme/treatment I would use on the model organism/stem cell). Right now, I really don't have a clue, and I thought that the professor would be able to help me develop my research plan and topic. Is that not so, do I really need to know how exactly I would treat Alzheimer's already?</p>
<p>So basically my questions are as follow
1. How should I approach a professor?
2. Does anyone know of research labs near northern NJ (the only one I've found so far is Rutgers)
3. Are professors really willing to help a high school student?
4. Do I need to develop a plan of treatment before I contact the professors?
5. What are the chances of me being able to work on this project during the summer?</p>