Weeks 10 and 11:
University of Iowa Department of Biochemistry

August 14, 2013

The final weeks of my internship consisted mostly of poster work and saying goodbye to all of the wonderful members of the Baker lab.  Although I did help inject one day and helped with cloning of constructs H36 and H37, I benefitted the most from my work on the poster and review paper which both helped me understand the scope of all of the things I accomplished in these short 11 weeks.  Just listing out the majority of the skills I learned this summer was overwhelming.

I utilized several methods in order to collect data including in no particular order: PCR, colony PCR, Overlap Extension PCR splicing, Midi kit DNA isolation, Mini kit DNA isolation, gel electrophoresis isolation, Lasergene software utilization for primer and gene construct design, plasmid ligation, bacteria cell transformation, bacterial amplification, Restriction Enzyme Mediated Integration reactions, frog handling, frog hormone and anesthetic injection, frog dissections, dissection microscopy, inverted microscopy, confocal microscopy, glass microinjection needle pulling, needle back-loading, transgenic microinjection of X. laevis oocytes, embryo and tadpole sorting, gfp screening of tadpoles, tadpole processing for sectioning, tissue sectioning, slide preparation and staining, Immunohistochemistry, nanodrop DNA concentration checking, and DNA sequencing.

After discussing it with Professor Christie-Pope and Dr. Baker, we have agreed that I will attempt to return for blocks 2 and 3 of this coming school year to continue my research in pursuit of an honors thesis.  The honors thesis program at Cornell is very similar to the graduate student programs offered at the University of Iowa and other graduate level programs across the country.  In my pursuit of this thesis, I hope to prepare myself for a career in science that would not be available to me without this experience.

The last piece of my summer experience included two poster presentation sessions in week 11.  The first one included all of the undergraduates who had performed a summer research project.  There were about 160 people from a number of fields including psychology, virology, biochemistry, organic chemistry, physics, art, engineering, sociology, and more.  I got to talk to a few people who were interested in frogs and even met with a member of the admissions board for the Biochemistry department’s graduate program who listened to my presentation.  I was also able to present my poster to a few more people at the FUTURE symposium and met some of the FUTURE alumni.  It was a great experience telling people about what I learned.

I cannot express the gratitude I have for the members of the Baker Lab, the Fellows program, the Dimensions program, and all of those who financially supported this summer experience that allowed me to immerse myself in the culture of primary scientific research.  This has pushed me towards pursuing a career in research because I can see myself working in a laboratory with people who have that ingrained passion for learning which would bore most people.