During the past semester and during the summer, I have had the amazing opportunity to work in Dr. Lefkowitz’s lab at the Duke School of Medicine. Winning the Nobel Prize in 2012 in Chemistry, Dr. Lefkowitz inspired me in a way that strengthened my passions in chemistry, medicine, and research. In particular, his faculty talk last Tuesday was one that I greatly enjoyed. He focused on providing us with key tips to become a great scientist, especially on the concept of failure. Even for him, one of the world’s most renowned scientists, Dr. Lefkowitz faced many challenges during his scientific career, saying that failure was an inevitable, but necessary, part of conducting research. He said that he didn’t feel challenged if too many of his experiments followed suit, allowing me to realize that is it okay to take risks even if the possibility of failure was almost guaranteed. To add, I found the subtle humor in his talk quite unique and uplifting. The article from the New England Journal of Medicine correlating chocolate consumption with the number of Nobel Prize winners per country was an interesting fact that compelled me to eat more Nutella crepes from Café in Wu! Overall, listening to my PI give this talk was a motivating factor in continuing my goal to become a great scientist. In the future, I hope I am able to talk to him more within the lab to gain feedback on my own projects and gain more mentorship from the valuable life lessons he continues to teach.
