G. Summer 2008 and Second Semester

This summer I had the privilege to participate in a summer program for undergraduates at the Biology Department of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program lasted from June 1st until August 8th, 2008. The program is “designed to give motivated undergraduate students graduate-level experience in a research environment, focuses on hands-on lab experience. SURE students will be spending a majority of their time working in the lab, attending lab meetings, and interacting with members of other labs”. My mentor was Haiqing Zhao and our project for the summer focused on olfactory receptors. The goal was to determine the turnover rate of the receptors. The experience was very enriching and rewarding. This experience permitted me to observe the world of graduate school and how the environment really is. All I can say of this experience is that I am really glad I applied for the program because it gave insight into may areas of my life.

For this semester in my university as part of the BioMinds program I plan to continue my work in the same investigation project as the last semester. In order to complete the first phase if the project I plan to accomplish this semester the completion of the second and third rounds of biopanning in order to sequence my candidates for the biomarker. After completion of the first phase other experiments will follow that will compliment and enrich the project. One of the aims will be to test the biomarker candidates with targets that are similar to the original target of the first phase. This will allow to verify the validity and specificity of the biomarker candidates for the original target. Last semester the techniques for this semester were learned and pratice so this semester will only be performing and mastering these techniques in order to complete the investigation.