In-House Research
No lab bench required — just rigor. In-house research is where our undergraduates lead real literature review and meta-analysis projects, built to be submitted, reviewed, and published.
This is where most researchers at the Breathe Better Foundation start — and it's more hands-on than the name suggests. Experienced undergraduate students lead literature review and meta-analysis projects in an area of pulmonary medicine, chosen to fit the scope of an open-access journal we're targeting for submission. It's real academic work: reading deeply, synthesizing what's already known, and finding what the field hasn't answered yet.
We pick our subject areas deliberately, matched to journals that publish open access so the finished work is free for anyone to read — including the communities it's often about. Past submissions include the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.
From open question to submission.
We choose a journal and a subject area
A target open-access journal sets the scope — a corner of pulmonary medicine specific enough to say something new, broad enough to matter.
An experienced student leads the team
Someone who's been through the process before leads a small team of chapter members through this one, so new researchers always have someone ahead of them.
The team runs the review
Structured literature review or meta-analysis: gathering the published research, weighing its quality, and synthesizing what it actually shows.
The manuscript goes out for review
Finished work is submitted to the target journal and goes through the same external peer review as any other academic submission.
It's structured like a real lab — because it is one.
Two more things that set this apart from a typical undergraduate research club.
Lead your own lab, or join one
Experienced members can lead their own research lab inside the organization. Prefer to learn first? Join a lab led by a peer instead — including members who've already published in journals like Nature Chemical Biology and led clinical trials of their own. Either way, you're inside a mentorship structure, not a project queue.
Weekly lab meetings
Every lab meets weekly, and every member takes a turn presenting — a colloquium-style talk on a topic of their own choosing. It's practice for the part of research most undergraduates never get to touch: standing at the front of a room and defending your thinking.
Every project is student-led — and independently reviewed.
Undergraduates lead the literature review and drive the writing on every project. Wherever we can, we bring in licensed pulmonologists to collaborate on authorship and lend clinical judgment to the work. Either way, nothing gets called a publication until it clears external peer review at the accepting journal — the same bar any other submission has to meet.
Two submissions, two acceptances.
Literature reviews on the roles of mitochondria in asthma and in COPD, both led by this exact process, were accepted at the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine — our first two publications as an organization.
Read About ThemNo prior research experience needed
If you're joining a chapter and want in on a literature review or meta-analysis project, this is usually the first place to look. You'll be paired with a team already led by someone who's done it before.
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