Ever since I started learning about molecular biology, I’ve found the approaches in this field interestingly creative. What always amazes me is how scientists were able to find elegant ways of quantifying and measuring big questions from different angles. In addition to learning about the science and the lab techniques, I expect to practice something that’s perhaps more essential — how to think and tackle problems like a researcher.
An advantage of doing research during the summer is that I actually have time to slow down and just think. One thing I learned during the short time I’ve been in the lab is that a big part of research is planning. This includes asking questions, thinking of ways to operationalize those questions, and designing specific experiments that address different parts of a question. My mentor Rachel’s research is about the interaction between Yersinia pestis (aka the plague) and a transmembrane protein. For the summer, my goal is to help design and study mutants of that transmembrane protein and see how different domains of its extracellular portion contribute to its binding with Y. pestis. There’s a lot of preparation behind every experiment. During the past week, we’ve mostly just been planning for an experiment. To design the ideal protein mutants for the project, we had to first look through literature and see how people have mutated this kind of extracellular domain to study them on other proteins. After that, we had to design several plasmids that express mutated versions of the protein of interest. A lot of effort has gone into just the logistics and designing. I think this is a fun part of research because it involves a lot of brainstorming and discussion. It also makes me even more excited about carrying out the actual experiment next week, as I have a much deeper understanding of the experiment’s proximate and ultimate goals.
I’ve always found biology fascinating, and I’m sure what I do in the future will have something to do with this giant field of biomedical sciences. Therefore, another important goal for the summer, then, is to figure out whether doing basic science research in the academic setting is what I want. So far, I’ve really enjoyed my time at the lab.
