Summer Research Part 2. Final Remarks

Here's me doing some PCR work and getting my DNA ready to be sent for sequencing

Hey everyone! So this is the final week of the summer research project and a lot of things have been going on.

I had hope to write this before I finished my research, but things don’t always go as you expected, but here are some final remarks and stuff that happened during my time there.

Some final remarks about my research:

We have currently put a stall to most of the actual research we have been doing and waiting for the semester to start up again. My lab partner and I are working on building our poster and just submitted our abstract for the annual Summer Research Symposium and then it’s pretty much a wrap up on what we have done for the summer. There are a lot of revisions going around at the abstract, and some a challenge is changing your scientific language to fit the general audience and making sure the abstract can be understood. After about probably 8 or 9 drafts though we were able to send it. Now all that is left is to work on the poster.

My lab partner has been out doing stuff for the Jesuit Leadership Conference on our last week of research so she finished her research already and I’m doing some new stuff. As you can see on the left, I’ve had the awesome opportunities to try out PCR (polymerase Chain Reaction), make my own DNA preps, and send out my results for sequencing. Which basically means I grind up the flies and extract their DNA, then I make a lot of more of that DNA through PCR and then send I send the DNA out so I can get back a DNA sequence with all of those ATCG base pairs that make up the DNA and look at the genes that are on the sequence. Pretty cool.

There have been also seminars every week during the 9 week program where a speak from the college comes in and talks about his/her research and it’s been great to listen to all the professors come in and talk about their work and hearing something in a different ideas go around.

I went out with a couple of people to a restaurant called Hiaku for sushi.  Those couple of people were actually people who read my blog and wanted to have dinner with me, so we did! We talked and then ate some froyo (frozen yogurt) at Wooberry and talked more about Holy Cross (this is where I realized she was definitely crusader worthy.). They were Giulia and her dad Joe, and Giulia is going to be applying this year to Holy Cross and I think she’d be a great asset to the college if she was let it. Anyways, best wishes to her!

Giulia, her dad and me at Haiku

The Menu

The bar area where we sat

My froyo at Wooberry

Going back in time, earlier that week some of the biology professors held an ice cream party with their research students followed by a seminar by my professor about graduate school and it’s pros and cons which was really helpful. I personally had never had liquid nitrogen ice cream before so having it there was really interesting to me and the ice cream tasted great, and super creamy. Thanks to Professor Bellin for talking through it and demonstrating it and my professor, Professor Webster, for stirring. It was a great time. Excuse my laughing and enjoying sighs of deliciousness. (Professor Bellin gets cut off at the end, but he goes to say that the carbonated ice cream made with dry ice will be fizzy when you eat it, I’d also like to try that someday)

Finally, with the last week of research we had a concert and barbeque outside to finish off the summer research. I really enjoyed the whole experience this summer and would definitely do it again given the chance that my housing experience is better. I’m not too sure what my plans are for my next summer yet, but if I’m not doing anything new, I’m definitely going to research during the summer again.

Best,

Dan

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2012 at 3:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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