My hope for the summer is to see what scientific research is truly like. I’ve really enjoyed the science classes I’ve taken at Duke so far (albeit the lab write ups), but with most subjects, there can be a big difference between the classroom and real life application.
I am working in the Buchler lab, run by Nick Buchler, which is a systems biology lab that studies the “evolution of epigenetic switches (bistability) and clocks (oscillators) in gene regulatory networks”. If you want to learn more, here’s a link to the lab’s webpage, http://buchler.phy.duke.edu/. While in the Buchler lab, I am also collaborating with the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) team, whose work currently involves a CRISPR/Cas system. iGEM is a synthetic biology competition, this is the website for the organization, https://www.igem.org/Main_Page, and this is the Duke iGEM team’s page, http://2014.igem.org/Team:Duke.
This first week was good. I was introduced to the scientists in the Buchler lab and I was able to attend one scientist’s presentation on the progress he had made in the last few months on his research. It was helpful to see how someone organized their ideas and decided what to pursue and focus on. I also got to meet the iGEM team for the first time and learn about their project, which was really interesting.
I spent a lot of time studying this week. I read 6 scientific papers, a couple hundred pages from a laboratory manual on molecular cloning, and the iGEM team’s journal of their work from last year. I think it will pay off next week when my lab work becomes more hands on.
Because this a new experience, I am trying to minimize my own expectations. I feel like coming in with expectations of what this program is supposed to be like or what I am supposed to accomplish will only cause me to value the experience in skewed way. The only thing I expect is that I’ll probably make a couple mistakes here and there. I just hope that if I work hard I can learn from the more experienced people around me and eventually gain a better understanding of what scientific research is. In the mean time though, here are this week’s science memes.
