Center for Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases
Student Researcher (June 2011 - Present)
At the end of my freshman year of college, I was an eager student who wanted to get involved and do something with my time. Unfortunately, I was young and extremely intimidated by the opportunities that were laid out in front of me. I could get involved on campus as a tour guide, RA, or many other options, but most of them didn't satisfy my thirst for science. I knew research was an option, but that required competence and I had only taken one biology course in my life. Despite this, I was driven to get involved in Fred Buckner's lab in the Center for Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases (CERID). Through my next three years I would improve dramatically as a person and a scientist.
Through my time at CERID, I have worked on a project under the guidance of my Principal Investigator Fred Buckner and another mentor Rob Gillespie. Under their supervision, I have taught the processes of research and how to grow through each step, whether it be filled with failure or success. They have taught me the techniques necessary to be a productive member in the lab and as a result, I have been able to clone and sequence genes in the wild-type and resistant-type T.cruzi parasites in order to determine if mutations in a particular gene are responsible for conferring resistance to a known drug. After this project, I moved forward to engineering a knock-out variant of T.cruzi by replacing two pairs of alleles of different genes with antibiotic resistance markers. This was done through a technique of recombination which is another tool I have learned through working in the Buckner lab.
In order to complete the goals above, I have had to identify my weaknesses as an individual and actively strive to improve myself so that I could complete the tasks required of the working in a lab. First off, I had to acknowledge my lack of knowledge of the field. My position involved working with DNA, of which I had the base knowledge of 2 weeks of class from a general biology class, let alone techniques about how to manipulate DNA. To alleviate this, I did my own research on DNA and the various techniques such as transforming, ligating, recombination, gel electrophoresis, mini/mega preps, as well as navigating the software used to analyze DNA. This required developing the confidence to acknowledge my flaws, but more importantly to ask for help from those who knew the answer. In order to get through the position, I relied on my peers to teach me the above techniques that would be necessary. As I became more competent in doing these protocols, I became more confident in my own school which drastically reduced how intimidating research seemed. This served to make research much more enjoyable because instead of being anxious about failure, I became excited to see what the results of certain experiments were.
Another weakness I had to overcome, and still working on improving, is my basic organizational/reliability skills. While working in a lab, there are many variables that one needs to plan ahead for in order to have reliable results. In addition, in order to keep a project moving forward, the researcher needs to plan weeks in advance in order to have a practical timeline and the reagents necessary to keep driving the project forward. Coming in as a freshman, I lacked these skills but through extensive practice in lab, I have developed these skills. Of course, these are skills that are always improving, but through learning various protocols and planning multiple experiments I have drastically improved.
Through working under the guidance of Dr. Buckner, I have had an extensively valuable experiential learning opportunity. I have been allowed to get hands on research experience that is rare otherwise. There are three big takeaways I have from this experience. First, my experience has secure that my future is rooted in medical science, whether that be in research or a clinic. Furthermore, while I thoroughly enjoy research, I want to investigate more about working in a clinic as a future directive. If I learn that clinical life is not my style, I will have a happy home working in research. Second, it was eye opening to work with a team of diverse individuals who were not the same as me in regards to aspirations, origin, and most notably age. I was working alongside people with many years of experience who were open to explaining things to me but more importantly working with me as nearly equal. This opened my eye to the real world since most of my experiences have been based in classrooms where everyone is of similar age. Lastly, I learned that if I have a goal, I can put in the effort to achieve it even if I am initially inept at it. Coming in to the lab, I had the drive but not the knowledge, but with time my drive helped me fill in the pieces that would allow me to become a productive member of the lab.
Through my time at CERID, I have worked on a project under the guidance of my Principal Investigator Fred Buckner and another mentor Rob Gillespie. Under their supervision, I have taught the processes of research and how to grow through each step, whether it be filled with failure or success. They have taught me the techniques necessary to be a productive member in the lab and as a result, I have been able to clone and sequence genes in the wild-type and resistant-type T.cruzi parasites in order to determine if mutations in a particular gene are responsible for conferring resistance to a known drug. After this project, I moved forward to engineering a knock-out variant of T.cruzi by replacing two pairs of alleles of different genes with antibiotic resistance markers. This was done through a technique of recombination which is another tool I have learned through working in the Buckner lab.
In order to complete the goals above, I have had to identify my weaknesses as an individual and actively strive to improve myself so that I could complete the tasks required of the working in a lab. First off, I had to acknowledge my lack of knowledge of the field. My position involved working with DNA, of which I had the base knowledge of 2 weeks of class from a general biology class, let alone techniques about how to manipulate DNA. To alleviate this, I did my own research on DNA and the various techniques such as transforming, ligating, recombination, gel electrophoresis, mini/mega preps, as well as navigating the software used to analyze DNA. This required developing the confidence to acknowledge my flaws, but more importantly to ask for help from those who knew the answer. In order to get through the position, I relied on my peers to teach me the above techniques that would be necessary. As I became more competent in doing these protocols, I became more confident in my own school which drastically reduced how intimidating research seemed. This served to make research much more enjoyable because instead of being anxious about failure, I became excited to see what the results of certain experiments were.
Another weakness I had to overcome, and still working on improving, is my basic organizational/reliability skills. While working in a lab, there are many variables that one needs to plan ahead for in order to have reliable results. In addition, in order to keep a project moving forward, the researcher needs to plan weeks in advance in order to have a practical timeline and the reagents necessary to keep driving the project forward. Coming in as a freshman, I lacked these skills but through extensive practice in lab, I have developed these skills. Of course, these are skills that are always improving, but through learning various protocols and planning multiple experiments I have drastically improved.
Through working under the guidance of Dr. Buckner, I have had an extensively valuable experiential learning opportunity. I have been allowed to get hands on research experience that is rare otherwise. There are three big takeaways I have from this experience. First, my experience has secure that my future is rooted in medical science, whether that be in research or a clinic. Furthermore, while I thoroughly enjoy research, I want to investigate more about working in a clinic as a future directive. If I learn that clinical life is not my style, I will have a happy home working in research. Second, it was eye opening to work with a team of diverse individuals who were not the same as me in regards to aspirations, origin, and most notably age. I was working alongside people with many years of experience who were open to explaining things to me but more importantly working with me as nearly equal. This opened my eye to the real world since most of my experiences have been based in classrooms where everyone is of similar age. Lastly, I learned that if I have a goal, I can put in the effort to achieve it even if I am initially inept at it. Coming in to the lab, I had the drive but not the knowledge, but with time my drive helped me fill in the pieces that would allow me to become a productive member of the lab.