July 25, 2016
By: Chad Munger
Going into the program, I certainly expected experiments to completely fail. I expected them to return completely unexpected results. I expected them to be unidentifiably wrong in some way. But what I did not expect is for the experiments to...
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By: Moreen Njoroge
Well, it turns out this is not an easy task. Everyday is not sunny, but everyday is certainly a small adventure in itself. Looking back, I was very naïve about the process of scientific research. I had always heard...
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By: Margo Orlen
Something I’ve come to learn this summer is that research is all about repetition. What makes a great paper? What makes for a strong experiment? Repetition, repetition, repetition. So by now I’ve run my millionth BRET assay under a million...
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By: Demi Zhu
As the summer has progressed, so has my research. We got our first set of sequencing data back last week, and are hopefully going to get our next set back next week. The mutation rates have also been calculated, and...
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July 24, 2016
By: Ricardo Matias
With two weeks left until the poster session, my project is finally starting to come together. I will definitely be working overtime to make sure that everything is completed in time. As far as my project goes, I’ve improved quite...
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By: Emre Kiziltug
When I first saw my research project for the summer and what I would need to do to accomplish it, I thought my tasks were pretty straightforward and I would be done in two weeks with clear results. Well, turns...
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By: Griffin Haas
The first part of my research experience went surprisingly smooth, with few mishaps or questionable results, with the exception of an enzyme or two not working as well as we'd hope. It was fantastic to see my first plasmid I...
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By: Raj Borra
It's hard to believe that we are almost done with the program; it feels like it was just last week when I walked into lab for the first time and had no clue what was going on at all. It definitely...
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By: Elizabeth Snyder-Mounts
Overall, this project has taught me a lot. I have learned not only about the specifics of dealing with cell culture, but also about how a lab works in general. I have come across many things that have taken practice...
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By: Ajile Owens
Now that we are pretty much in the home stretch of our program, I can confidently say that this summer has certainly been one of growth and knowledge. Coming into BSURF, I had very little idea of what to expect in...
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By: Courtney Hill
When my research experience is compared with my original research expectations, I find that the two vary significantly. My expectations of what I would be doing in a lab (before my PI told me) were basically that as a young undergrad, I...
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By: Melissa Horowitz
As the summer is getting nearer to its completion, so is my project, and fortunately with usable data! After four weeks of counting germination proportions in 1000+ petri dishes with around 20 seeds each, it’s a relief to know that...
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By: Yilin Yang
My project seemed very simple in the beginning: no difficult biochemistry, no complicated experimental procedures, and honestly, the fanciest machine ever involved in my experiments is probably the thermal cycler, aka the PCR machine. But in reality, as I’ve slowly...
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By: Hannah Ahrendt
My work in the lab has had its ups and downs during the past six weeks; some days are very productive while others are not so much. Working on a computational project in a lab that doesn’t do very much...
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By: Susan Zheng
Over the past 6 weeks, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned how to pipette the optimal mix of reagents to amplify DNA for PCR. I’ve learned how to clone DNA with a plasmid vector. I’ve learned how to perform ventricle resection...
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By: Megan Jiao
So far this summer, I'm finding that as soon as I start feeling comfortable with my daily routine, my mentor introduces something new or I encounter new problems. Since the very beginning, the learning process has never halted, forcing me...
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July 21, 2016
By: Casey Kuka
In my irrational subconscious, I feared the summer might go something like this: Walk into the lab. Never fully grasp what the heck was going on. Cost the lab thousands of dollars on reagents flushed away in countless botched experiments....
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July 19, 2016
By: Chad Munger
All of the chalk talks last week were extremely interesting. It was a great opportunity to understand what everyone was researching. One of the most fascinating talks was Ajile’s presentation. I had never heard of ‘broad neutralizing antibodies’ before. They...
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