Duke University | Howard Hughes Undergraduate Program

So, I’ve been sitting at home for about a week now, just relaxing a bit before starting up the fall semester in another 2 weeks. I’ve had some time to think back on the Howard Hughes program and reminisce. I think the biggest realization I’ve come to is this:

“Wow. I cannot believe I just did all that in 8 weeks.”

Looking back, the experience seemed almost surreal. When I entered the Blobe lab in early June, I was pretty much in the dark about my summer project. The only things I really knew were that I was working in a cancer biology lab in the LSRC, and that my mentor worked with endothelial cells and how they affected blood vessel development. That, and some of the background from a handful of papers I had read in May, was really all I knew coming in on June 7.

Eight weeks later, I realize that I had gone on a journey. Along the way, I have learned just so much about my project, working in a lab, and research in general:

I’ve learned that working in a research lab is a much more social environment than people give it credit for.

I’ve learned the importance of befriending your fellow researchers, because they’re awesome people who are very willing to help you succeed, either by answering your questions or teaching you something new.

I’ve learned that it’s important to ask a question whenever it pops up in your mind, no matter how stupid it might sound in your head. It’s better to be confused and clear something up now instead of being confused after conducting an experiment and wondering if it worked.

I’ve learned that although lab presentations can be intimidating at first, they are great ways to get feedback from other researchers on how to improve your work, or even how to start a new project stemming from an existing one.

I’ve learned (mostly from my mentor, Nam) that it’s important to stay loose in the lab, crack a few jokes now and then, just to keep your work stress-free.

I’ve learned that it’s important to stay dedicated and passionate about your research, but not to let your failures and mistakes discourage you from your goals.

I’ve learned not to be discouraged by mistakes, because someone else in the lab has also undoubtedly made the same mistake more than once.

I’ve learned some powerful techniques universal to biology labs (immunofluorescence, Western blotting, gel electrophoresis) that previously, I had only read about.

I’ve learned, through trial and error, how to successfully utilize these techniques for protein analysis within cells.

I’ve learned that verifying your results by repeating trials, no matter how tedious it may sound, is absolutely imperative.

I’ve learned that utilizing sterile technique when cultivating cells is a must. When in doubt, spray that bottle with ethanol. You don’t want contamination, do you?

I’ve learned that bacterial contamination is a very, very bad thing when cultivating cells.

I’ve learned that it’s important to keep extra flasks of cells, not if, but WHEN you get contamination, because it’s gonna happen.

I’ve learned, well, confirmed actually, that I love looking through a microscope because there’s a beautiful, alien world on that microscope slide looking back at you.

I’ve learned that your eyes will be very mad at you if you look through a microscope for 4 hours straight, no matter how beautiful that alien world on the microscope slide is.

I’ve learned the importance of poster sessions because they expose possibly your most important audience, people who know NOTHING about your field of work, to what you’re doing. It’s important to know how your work will affect the general public, so it’s good to think of the “big picture” now and then.

I’ve learned that I really enjoy working in a cancer research lab, because I can see the impact that my work has on the general public.

I’ve learned that cell-signaling and signal transduction pathways are critical in cancer development, and our understanding of how various signaling pathways interact is crucial if we ever hope to develop a cure for cancer.

I’ve learned that a lot of free time in the lab is spent reading papers relevant to what you are working on, and that this is extremely important because you want your background knowledge to be as extensive as possible.

I’ve learned, through the seminars, that everyone’s story as to how they’ve ended up in research is different, and that a lot of people didn’t take the direct UNDERGRAD -> GRAD SCHOOL -> POST DOC research path.

I’ve learned how to be independent in research, and that the best way to learn is by doing things on your own and messing up a few times. By extension, I’ve learned that you WILL mess up in the lab, no matter how hard you try not to.

I’ve learned to exercise my independence in research by trying something different and tinkering with experimental parameters (concentrations, volumes, etc.) to find that perfect outcome.

I’ve learned that I love working in this lab, and that I will CONTINUE to exercise my independence next semester in the Blobe lab, through an independent study!

I’ve learned that the various Howard Hughes programs are PERFECT for you if you have any interest in research whatsoever.

I’ve learned that research is an incredibly fulfilling career path, so long as you are passionate about what you’re researching.

___________
Thank you to everyone who made this summer possible.
Thank you to Dean Nijhout, Suzanne, and Alex for helping keep us all together this summer and putting this show on the road.
Thanks to everyone in the Blobe lab: My mentor, Nam Lee…my PI, Dr. Blobe….everyone else in the lab (Mythreye, Sun, Cathy, Tam, Jason, Cheryl, Jenny, everybody!)
And thank YOU for reading this blog!

Back to the Future

The future. Who will I be? What will I become? It’s crazy to think that in only a few years, I’ll totally be on my own. As for what I want to do, well, I’m torn. I’m into medicine, and I think that being a physician would be a really fulfilling life experience. Sounds cliché, doesn’t it? But I can’t help it. I’ve had an interest in cardiology for a while…there just seems to be something really alluring in working with the human heart. I can’t really put my finger on it…maybe it’s just the sheer importance and power of the heart itself. How can something work for almost a century, pulsing around 3 billion times and never miss a beat? It just seems so perfect. Also, after being in a cancer research lab, my eyes have been opened to oncology. I truly believe that the highlight for our generation will be a cure for cancer. Being in a cancer research lab had made me realize just how much progress we’ve been making at the molecular level in figuring out just what goes wrong with cancer cells…and there are hundreds of cancer research labs around the world just like mine, working just as hard. It’s bound to happen.

I guess that brings me to the reason why I’m torn. I really love research, partly because I’ve grown up around it, with my dad having his own lab back at home. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, I suppose. Research really appeals to me because it seems like every day you’re learning something new. What you do in research has never been done before, and that’s really exciting. Plus, while working in a place like a cancer research lab, you can see the immediate impact of your research. It’s really cool knowing that, even if it was for 8 weeks, I’ve done my part in the fight against cancer.

Ideally, I suppose an Md/Phd program would be the thing for me, since it’s the best of both worlds. I’d love to be a part of Duke’s Medical Scientist Training Program, because Duke itself seems to be the perfect blend of the clinical and research worlds. But even as I sit thinking about it, I wonder if I’d be better suited for just pure research. I really love the freedom you get by being in a lab…you get to do things at your own pace and set your own limits. So long as you are dedicated, sincere, and passionate about what you do, you’ll be successful in research.

Who will I be? What will I become? I guess time will tell.

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
-Buddha

So, back to where I started. After weeks of lackluster results from my AKT and ERK translocation experiments, we decided to retry our earlier SMAD translocation experiment, just to see if we got any good results. This was the same experiment that I started off with, in the first 2 weeks (check the older blog posts).

It turns out that waiting for 4 weeks did the trick. I’ve decided to put my AKT and ERK projects on the side burner for now, and really focus on the SMAD translocation assays.

Basically, like I said earlier, I’m trying to see how certain proteins interact with endoglin to facilitate their movement into the nucleus of endothelial cells. There’s a lot of different proteins that we believe have such interactions, such as ERK, AKT, and the SMADs. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see a real interaction for ERK and AKT, partly because my immunofluorescence has been so sketchy as of late. But, this is probably in part due to a bad secondary fluorescent antibody in our lab. The SMAD2 experiments do not need to use this particular antibody, and as a result, my immunofluorescence experiments have been working perfectly!

And, on top of that, I’m getting some really, really interesting data…and am managing to quantify something that Nam had a hunch about for a while now. My data has been so good, that I’ve decided to shift projects completely from the AKT and ERK project to the SMAD project within the last week.

In other words, what you heard at my chalk talk will probably not be showing up on my poster. These new results are just too hard to pass up, so time to switch gears.

It’s frustrating knowing that a lot of the data I have gathered over the last 4 weeks won’t be used this summer, but that’s research. As someone told me the other day, research can sometimes be characterized as “long periods of failure interrupted by short bursts of huge success.” And that’s basically how this summer has gone as of late.

"Success is not permanent. The same is also true of failure."
~Dell Crossword
 

Good news! I’ve figured out what went wrong with my immunofluorescence last week. It turns out that the reagents I used, in particular the Triton-X detergent I used to open up the cell membranes (so that fluorescent antibodies can enter the cell) were a bit old. After making a new batch of…well…everything, I got my signal back! I’m back in business, and back on track. Now that I’ve got the kinks in the technique worked out, I can really start going full swing into taking more pictures of the endothelial cells and gathering more data. Specifically, I want to get a rough estimate of how many cells, in the presence of certain stimulants, undergo nuclear translocation for “protein X”. In other words, time to start counting cells.

Here’s another picture of some endothelial cells I cultured…I think I might have put too many cells on the cover slip…‘Til next time.

"I don't know the key to success but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."
Bill Cosby
 

Recently, the Howard Hughes fellows watched “And the Band Played On”, a movie about the AIDS epidemic during the 1980s and the discovery of the HIV virus. A major part of the film was about the dispute between Dr. Robert Gallo and Dr. Luc Montagnier concerning the discovery of the virus. There has been controversy over whose lab was the first to isolate it, but today, it is agreed upon that Montagnier was the first to discover the virus, but much of Gallo’s work linked it to AIDS. Also, Gallo had been accused of misusing HIV samples granted to their lab by Montagnier’s. Although Gallo’s work has been crucial for better understanding HIV/AIDS, he was not awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008, which was instead presented solely to Montagnier.

Scientists are under a lot of pressure to get their work out to the community and get published in top journals. In science, the highest accolades go out to those who are published in the most noteworthy journals, such as Nature. Unfortunately, these pressures to achieve notoriety have sometimes resulted in misconduct, such as falsification of data. The ramifications of such misconduct can be devastating for a scientist’s career, because one’s reputation counts for quite a bit in science. If you have been labeled as someone who falsifies your data, your reputation will be tarnished, keeping you from receiving grants or seeking top positions of employment. In other words, your career could come to an end.

It’s hard to get away with falsification of data, because often, other scientists in different labs will attempt to replicate your findings. And if they can’t do that, then there’s an obvious problem. So…the moral of the story? Just don’t do it.

“Science has promised us truth. It has never promised us either peace or happiness.”
-Gustave Le Bon