The College of Pharmacy, located in Iowa City, IA, is one of the many colleges within the University of Iowa. Here, there are countless opportunities for research ranging from cellular to human experimentation. My name is Alex Marcoux, and I am an upcoming sophomore at Cornell College. This summer I was accepted into the Gaine Lab to aid graduate students in their research, complete an individual research experiment, and write a peer review on my research topic. Some of the research I will be helping with is included but not limited to: extracting DNA from whole blood samples of patients with schizophrenia and looking at the genetic and epigenetic changes associated with suicide and psychiatric disorder. My individual research will be focused around the genetic and epigenetic changes associated with cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in schizophrenia patients from whole blood. My peer review paper will be addressing sex-specific changes in suicide primarily focusing around females.
As anxious as I am to start working in the lab, I have to take different courses to prepare such as general lab safety, site-specific lab safety, animal experimentation, human subject protection, and more! This was a lot to do in such a short time, but thanks to Cornell’s “One Course at a Time,” I am confident and comfortable with taking in a lot of knowledge at once and managing my time to do so. Additionally, Cornell’s science department has taught me a lot of the basics in lab safety; this greatly helped with understanding some of the course material!
Along with completing the required courses, I also had to research and familiarize myself with the terminology, methods, and protocols of the topics I’ll be working with in the lab. In my individual research, I came across a problem with the materials I needed to carry out my experiment. I only have access to whole blood samples, not plasma or serum, so I had to find a cfDNA extraction kit that worked for whole blood samples. The bad news is that I was unable to find a kit, but the good news is that I found a research paper with a descriptive method on how to modify a kit generally used for plasma! Now, I have to find all of the components and put together my own kit. This will take some trial-and-error, but I am very hopeful. Lastly, I had to “term harvest” for my peer review paper. I got to meet with the university’s public health librarian to make a solid plan on how to start my peer review and what I needed to do to prepare. In the upcoming month, I will hopefully have all of the materials I need to have completed my first draft!
Since a lot of my work was on the computer, much of my time at home and in the office was spent on the computer getting all of my materials ready.
I am the youngest of my colleagues which makes me feel behind at times, but my team has been so understanding, kind, and patient with explaining new concepts to me. I was taken on a tour of campus, learned where the best coffee was, where the crematorium was, and where to get any materials needed for the lab. After my tour, I experienced my first lab meeting where everyone shared a bit about themselves and their research! This sparked my interest because everyone was doing something unique and different from each other. As someone who is very passionate about the science behind different psychiatric disorders and medications, this made me extremely excited to start my research! My goal after Cornell is to go into an MD and PhD program; I would like to be a practicing surgeon while continuing research in psychiatric disorders. After my first week at the University of Iowa, I have been more and more excited to learn more about this type of research! Hopefully, next week I will be able to get started in the lab, and I cannot wait!
This is my little office space right outside of the lab in the student room; I plan to decorate and jazz it up within the next week!
This is the BEST lab notebook I’ve ever had! As a student with many different lab notebooks, this one takes the cake! There is a notes section, a table of contents, graphing paper, numbered pages, and most importantly, bleed-proof paper!