Student Research at Duke

Sarah Steele has been so busy cleaning up messy explosions in her lab that she missed some of the ethics seminars last week. But at least she’s got pictures!

One would never mistake a fruitfly for a human, yet there are some remarkable biological similarities that make these insects very useful for biomedical research. Priya Khatri saw that first-hand this week when her PI, Nina Sherwood, showed her some movies of humans and fruitflies with a similar neuro-muscular disorder. Priya writes: “First she showed me a video of HSP patients and then the fly video. It was as if a field of lightbulbs had alighted, as well as thousands of questions.”

Last week’s seminars on research ethics inspired several thoughtful posts from program fellows. Through a reading, a movie and a lecture, they were introduced to the ugly underbellies of data fraud, squabbles over credit, and the risks faced by a whistleblower. A few good ones:
Wendy Liu - Julie Sogani - Priyanka Amin - Lulit Price

Reading these posts, sometimes it’s a little hard to believe that these are students who have had only one year of undergraduate education. Yishan Cheng describes her work on the Wnt signalling pathway in cancer stem cells about as well as anyone could in lay language.

Kristin Knouse is having some fun tweaking a signalling pathway called transforming growth factor beta (or TGFb) and seeing — actually seeing — what it does to cells. There’s a chance this pathway has something to do with cancer cells being able to spread via metastasis, so this is pretty cool stuff, in addition to making pretty pictures. I’ll let her explain it further.

Catherine Hartman has posted some pictures of the fly lab and told us about trashing half of her DNA samples by mistake. D’Oh!

It was welcome news to Julie Stevenson that her mentor was never really interested in Medical School or becoming a doctor. Julie isn’t either, but sometimes she feels like the odd woman out for just wanting to pursue a PhD. “I was fascinated and sort of relieved,” she says.

We’ve got company! The Duke University pre-college summer program, also sponsored by our friends at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has launched its own blog. These are 15 area high school students having their first experiences in the lab at Duke, telling us what it’s like. Check it out!

Andrew Lyu is having a great time doing science in Fan Wang’s cell biology lab, where they’re interested in how sensory information is gathered and interpreted by the brain. In addition to some molecular biology experiments that are “coming back with decent results,” he’s been examining leftover turtle heads from a neighboring lab to look at their sensory organs up close. The thing is, he’s even dreaming about science.

Each of the HHMI summer fellows is asked to interview a working scientist, usually their principal investigator, as part of the experience. Julie Sogani spent a few minutes with her PI, cancer biologist Gerard Blobe and shared the experience with us. Read it here