Week 5: Chalk Talk Reflection

After listening to everyone’s chalk talks this week, I was amazed by how our project topics were so diverse, yet like Dr. Grunwald mentioned, there was a definite thread of commonality that linked all of our respective fields together. It was also fascinating to see how everybody has progressed so far in the span of 5 weeks; I still remember people voicing their worries and concerns about doing research the very first week, but clearly we’ve all improved since then to the point where we can knowledgeably present chalk talks and answer questions about our projects.

With that said, I enjoyed listening to everybody’s presentations, but one of them stood out to me in particular: I was particularly interested in Susan’s research on heart regeneration in zebrafish and the atrial/ventrial specification of genes for multiple reasons. For one, I’m potentially considering specializing in cardiology when/if I go to med school in the future. With heart disease as the leading cause of death in Americans, research into the heart and potential regeneration of heart tissue can play a vital role in improving cardiological health care in the future and possibly impact all of us, whether directly or indirectly. I also think that the genotype-to-phenotype aspect of her research is fascinating, especially since I am also doing genotype-to-phenotype research. While genes have a definite impact on phenotype, it’s intriguing to consider the broader picture of how something more abstract like environmental influences can play an important role in molecular processes such as transcription and translation as well, especially when these influences can have multigenerational effects. This is already a daunting task when considering all of this just in the context of the heart and cardiovascular system, but it’s humbling to imagine all of these possibilities applied to other relevant fields as well.

These chalk talks have made me realize both how far we’ve come as research fellows and how little we truly know about biology as a whole. While it’s important that we all specialize and become thoroughly knowledgeable in particular fields since there’s not much use in having only general knowledge, it’s fascinating to think about how we’ll all eventually grow to know so much information about so few topics (attached a relevant picture below from PhD Comics).

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