Great Expectations
What do I expect from being in a research lab for 8 weeks this summer?
This summer I hope to have a very fulfilling research experience that will help me down the road. The more experience you have in a lab, the better, in particular if you are looking into a research career in the future. The more time you spend in a lab, the more you will learn about the protocols and techniques that are applicable to any lab environment. For example, last year in the Benfey lab, I learned about the basics of “sterile technique”, or in other words, how to prevent contamination from occurring when conducting an experiment. Good sterile technique can only come through practice, and obviously you get practice by spending more time in the lab.
From a more practical standpoint, the more time you spend in a lab, the more you are exposed to universal experimental procedures. For example, last year I became pretty proficient at conducting gel electrophoresis and PCR in Dr. Benfey’s lab to test for the presence of genetic material. This summer, I was introduced to the Western Blot, which is used to test for the presence of certain proteins. Although I had never conducted a Blot before, the procedure itself seemed familiar to me because of my previous research experience. Both techniques involved setting up gels and letting them run in an electric current so that the molecules of interest (DNA or proteins) would be separated by their weight. “Running gels” for DNA or protein are similar procedures.
Finally, this summer I hope to work on my own project, for the first time, and hopefully make some useful discoveries for Dr. Lee and the Blobe lab. I realize that because I am working on my own without the years of experience of my mentors, I am bound to make mistakes. But, that’s the best way to learn, after all. Of course, my mentors will still be there to guide my progress and answer my questions.
So you might be wondering about what it is that I will actually be working on this summer, or what my project actually is. I can’t give too much away right now, without knowing the results of an experiment that I ran on Saturday (yep, you have to come into the lab on weekends, if need be). But, here’s a taste.
Basically, in the TGF-beta cell-signaling pathway, which I talked about in an earlier post, there are certain molecules called SMADs that can travel to the nucleus of a cell and act as transcription factors (molecules that affect how genetic information is expressed by a cell). Now, there are many different kinds of SMADs, and they can have different effects when they serve as transcription factors. In cell development, certain transcription factor SMADs can have opposite effects: they can either induce cell death (apoptosis), or they can cause cellular proliferation, and potentially, cancer. So, it’s important to know how these SMADs work, because they can play an essential role in uncontrolled cell proliferation, or in other words, cancer. Other molecules in the TGF-B pathway affect which SMADs are allowed to travel to the nucleus (nuclear translocation) and function as transcription factors. So, we want to see which and how these SMADs move to the nucleus in the presence of certain “other” molecules.
Sorry, no details yet. But soon! :]
And also. This summer, I expect to learn how to cook. The hard way. Recently, me and my roommate, Nick, went on a rampage at the local Target, shopping for ingredients. Here's me, modeling our newly-stocked fridge. Yum.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
