After walking up Research Drive, through the construction-friendly side entrance of the Duke Eye Center, and up 4 flights of stairs to the top of the Albert Eye Research Institute, I stuck my lunch baggie in the kitchen fridge and headed into the Ferreira Ophthalmology Lab for my first day in the Howard Hughes Research Fellowship.
At the end of the day I came home mentally exhausted, but excited for the weeks ahead. I had spent the day getting acquainted with the lab, and my extremely helpful PI (Principal Investigator), Dr. Ferreira, kept bringing me various textbooks throughout the day and opening them to point out the chapters I would find most helpful in understanding the work he specializes in, and in which I am lucky to take part this summer.
Dr. Ferreira’s research focuses on the retina, which is the part at the back of the eye that receives light and then transmits the visual information onto the brain to create the view that we see.
To me vision is fascinating and the most essential of the senses, so getting to spend time in this lab is an invaluable opportunity for me. The expectation that I am holding myself to is rather broad: I want to walk down those 4 flights at the end of the summer with a solid feel for the working environment in a research lab and having developed solid relationships with the members of that lab who have already been so generous and patient with the research newbie (that’s me).
So now as the first week comes to a close, and having heard my lab project explained to me 3 times, I am beginning to be able to vocalize the gist of it. It might not seem like much, but to me it’s a great start and I can’t wait to see how much I can understand by the end of these 2 months!
