Baby Steps of an Inexperienced Researcher

When I started my first week at BSURF, I felt very excited and eager to finally take part in a research project where I could explore and learn the different aspects of doing science. My only experience with biological research has been the lab component of Bio201 class, so I was a little nervous and worried about whether I could pull this off. First week in Kuo lab, I learned a lot more than I expected. I started with attending the lab meeting where lab members were presenting their data and analyzing it with Dr. Chay Kuo, my principal investigator. I would like to share something Dr. Kuo said during the meeting (as far as I remember) and I really liked: “Don’t be frustrated when you get a result you didn’t anticipate. Be excited, because you will learn new things with your unexpected results, not the expected ones.” I think this accurately demonstrates the paths scientists go through when they make breakthroughs and I set this as my first guideline when doing research.

In this summer, I will be conducting a mutagenesis project where I will try to determine which site of a protein is accountable for degradation of that protein in ependymal cells of the brain. I will mutate the protein multiple times and hopefully find the right site by the end of the program. During the first week, Khadar, my supervisor, taught me how to prepare agar plates, do bacterial transformation and some other basic lab techniques which will be very important when I start my mutagenesis project next week.

Besides those techniques, essentially I did a lot of reading regarding the literature related to our research and at first it seemed somewhat boring. But then I realized how important it is to understand what really is going on. In order to understand my role in the project and contribute to it, to find solutions to the problems we encounter, I should have a very good grasp of the experiments conducted, the techniques used , why, where and when they are used and which results could they provide to answer our questions. Sure, learning to follow protocols, pipetting, doing PCRs flawlessly are all very important since they will lead to correct results, but I think I can learn doing those things over time, as I do them repetitively and learn from my mistakes each time I make one. What I really want to learn this summer, besides perfecting my basic lab skills, is to think like a scientist. In the long term, I want to be able to ask the right questions and make the right decisions to control the direction of the research. So far, I found everything I looked for and I hope to continue in Kuo lab  not for just 2 months but for years.

On a side note, I  took some Turkish Delights to the lab and especially Dr. Kuo loved it. So, as long as I keep offering him more Turkish delights, I think I’ll have a secure spot in this lab.