Student Research at Duke

The atrium of the LSRC was filled with a loud, happy noise this morning as PIs, lab techs and students milled about and talked science with our intrepid scientist/bloggers. Great looking posters, polished talking points, Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes — these people had their games ON!

The posters mark the official end of the eight-week summer fellowship program generously supported at Duke by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, but every one of the students I talked with said they were planning to stay on in their lab and continue the current research. Frankly, in eight weeks, there wasn’t much they could do to actually finish what they set out to do, so a lot of them seem inspired to follow their story to a logical end. As discussed previously below, some of them found the experience cemented their goals, others are looking at a slightly different tack as a result of their experience. None of them said “I hate science! I’m quitting!”
Kudos and thanks again to program director, Mary Nijhout, associate dean of Trinity College for encouraging young scientific talent throughout the year, and for encouraging this summer’s participants to blog about their experience.

Thanks for reading; I have a feeling we’ll be back next summer… (KLB)

Yes, it looks like our young researchers had a great time and learned a ton in just eight short weeks. Most of them think they’re on the right career track too, which is always a nice thing. As for Jessica Shuen …well, the smile and the shirt speak for themselves.

Stop back tomorrow afternoon and see some images from the poster session. Better yet: come by in person if you can! 10:30 to Noon in the LSRC atrium.

Our bloggers have gone a bit quiet in the last week as ‘crunch time’ descends on them and their experiments. The term-ending poster session is from 10:30 to Noon this Friday, July 27, in the LSRC building. If you have been reading these blogs from somewhere nearby and following their personal and scientific narrative arcs, you might consider stopping by to meet these young author/explorers. Kristin Knouse wrote a very thoughtful summation today that probably speaks for most of the group.

“I’m not sure I have ever learned so much in eight weeks, as this experience not only taught me about a particular subject in science, but also how to do science. I learned how to frame a scientific question, how to plan an experiment, how to control for variables, and how to make appropriate conclusions from data. I also learned the importance of never losing sight of the big picture. It is easy to become wrapped up in one small experiment, and easily frustrated if things are not working out as expected. However, taking a step back and looking at the big picture can help you to troubleshoot and simply to keep you sane! “

Some students know what they’re going to be when they grow up from the minute they set foot on a college campus. Others are less certain and willing to let the college experience show them the way. Kalen Riley is in the latter camp, though he has found the Howard Hughes summer fellowship in Ryohei Yasuda’s neurobiology lab enlightening.

Having had zero research experience prior to Howard Hughes, I faced a great difficulty in deciding what was best for me. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to do research this summer, and although I still am not one hundred percent sure of anything yet, I am definitely heading in the right direction.

That sounds like the most any 19-year-old could hope for. Way to go, Kalen!

Let’s hear from Matthew Pease today. We haven’t noted his work in this space before now, but Matthew has been having a great summer working in William Wetsel’s lab with a mouse model of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He’s had up days and down, went on a little R&R with lab mates and has pondered his future direction. It’s all good.

Working in the lab has been a big hit with many of the HHMI summer fellows.

Racquel Quarless is sold on her experience in George Truskey’s biomedical engineering lab. “I am almost positive that biomedical research is the field in which I would like to make a career. I am intrigued by the remarkable progress and potential of the field and I am excited to see where my work in the lab will take me.”

Kristin Knouse is having such a good time in Xiao-Fan Wang’s cancer biology lab that she’s thinking of adding a PhD to her goal of an MD. “A combined MD/PhD degree would allow me to combine both the research and clinical aspects of medicine. More specifically, I feel that the fields of cancer biology and infectious disease are exciting, dynamic fields that could be pursued as a physician scientist.”

And Sidney Kuo has progressed from documenting how painful it is to be in Fred Dietrich’s lab at the ungodly hour of 9 a.m. to willingly putting in extra hours toward the big goal. “What I didn’t see beforehand, however, is the importance of having an ultimate goal in mind. That goal is what makes me willingly want to spend more time after work, or go in on weekends to work. And the progress that is made from all this work toward this goal is a very exhilarating form of satisfaction, something that makes work ultimately enjoyable despite the reptitive nature of the process.”

Wendy Liu may have drawn one of the more soothing assignments in the HHMI summer fellows program. She spends her days in the Fred Nijhout lab pondering the wondrous complexity of developing butterfly wings under a microscope. The larvae, well they aren’t so attractive, but the wings are “one of the most fascinating and gorgeous elements found in nature.”

It turns out there is a lot of down-time in a lab, waiting for things to defrost or run through a 6-hour PCR. But Sara Leiman is adjusting to life in the Meta Kuehn lab.

Of course, there is the downside that 6 hour incubation periods tend to come with early mornings and late evenings at the lab, if that is the sort of thing that bothers a person. But I have no problem with it. Besides, its nothing compared to lysing cells for 3 hours straight. And on that note, maybe there is another tidbit about research that most people do not know: you can pipette so hard that you get a blister. Not pleasant, I know, but at least I warned you.

Yongho Park has posted two pictures of aquaporin molecules — first identified by Duke’s Peter Agre — that look rather like green crayons wrapped in yarn. One of them readily joins a lipid raft on the bilayer membrane, the other one doesn’t.

Yongho says you can figure it out yourself “if you keep staring at the images,” which we’re guessing he has during his time in the Thomas McIntosh lab.

It’s not all work and no fun for Jessica Shuen and the Nicole Calakos lab. This week they all went floating down the Eno River together and then had a multi-national potluck.

“It was a great way to get to know the people in my lab better. Everyone in my lab has funny idiosyncracies that I would not have found out about otherwise- I couldn’t ask for a better bunch of people to hang out with for 8 hours a day!”