Going in lab always gives me peace of mind: during my first year at Duke, whenever I felt stressed, I would just go to the plant genetics lab that I was volunteering in, get a PCR done, do a transformation, or run some assays. I stayed in lab for three hours before my interview for BSURF, and I spent an entire day in lab before my ECE final. It was always only when I had gloves on and pipets in hand that I could truly appreciate the elegance of biology, forget everything else, and feel the thrill of doing something I love.
And then there comes BSURF. Surprisingly, the first day I walked into the Jiang lab in the Department of Medial Genetics, all I felt was excitement. No sweat in my hand. No stutter in my speech. Yes, plant genetics was cool – but this summer, I get to work on actual humans. A box of DNA samples from real, human patients already awaited me in the refrigerator. And looking around, there were all these fancy machines that I had never used or seen before. As my mentor introduced all the machines to me one by one – real-time PCR machine, ultracentrifuge, etc. – I felt more and more awestruck. I kept picturing how amazed I would feel if I could operate these machines on my own. I know I will get beautiful results and ugly ones, but either way, I marvel at how people had discovered all these ways to visualize and quantify the teeny tiny cell world. The machines are elegant. The whole lab is scenic. And I easily get addicted to scenic places with elegant designs.
What’s even more exciting is that during the eight weeks, besides lab bench, I will also be doing a lot of computational work such as DNA sequence comparison and analysis. This is a new skill to me and I am very excited to learn. In the past week, I’ve already learned to how to find the cDNA of a gene, how to find different isoforms of a given protein-coding sequence, and how to design primers for PCR. I believe these are fundamental to any research related to genetics, and they will help me become a more independent researcher.
Looking ahead, I don’t expect to understand the biochemistry of the operating mechanisms of all the fancy machines in lab, but I do want to get an idea of their functions, and how they help with research. I don’t expect to find or confirm the genetic causes of some neurological diseases, but I do want to get to learn as much as possible about the research of other people in lab, who are actually finding these causes. I don’t even expect my experiments to work all the time, but I just want to enjoy the view of lab everyday. I want to enjoy the machines humming, the “click” when a pipet tip is discarded and the attentive eyes of scientists. These expectations might sound a little selfish – I’m not even expecting to contribute to the field even the slightest amount – but I really can’t wait spend my eight weeks appreciating the elegance of biology and find my peace of mind within it.
Update: Here is a picture of me working (?) in the Jiang lab.
