Howard Hughes…Looking back
I probably should’ve posted this earlier but I’ve been quite busy since coming home! I actually stayed an extra week to finish up some work on the project so Adrian could have some extra data to include in his paper. On my last day we all went to LocoPops to celebrate the end of my summer research. If you haven’t been to LocoPops, you should really go. 
I only wish Peggy could’ve been there but she’s training for a triathlon along Lake Superior.
I had a fantastic time at the poster session!!! I think it was one of the best experiences of my life. I really enjoyed explaining my project to others and surprisingly, I got to meet some people who were specifically interested in it. Dr. Di Giulio is a PI in the Nicholas School of Environment and he had a high school HH scholar who worked on how PCB acts through the AhR receptor to affect populations of killfish. This is the cool part; the student’s mother, Carole Lannon, is a pediatrician at the Cincinatti Children’s Hospital and she was working on a database for Hypoplastic Left Heart patients. She asked me to send her a copy of my poster pdf and I was really flattered. I was really impressed with the questions I got too! Dr. Truskey, a BME professor who was Racquel’s mentor, asked me if we thought there were more AhR receptors in the left ventricle than in the right. We had never really thought about it and now we’re thinking of doing westerns for AhR receptors.
I also got to meet Dean Scheirer who is the new Chief Prehealth Advisor and we talked about what career paths I’m looking into.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the poster session and I’m very thankful to everyone (Dean Nijhout, Alex, Suzanne, Ms. Wahl, Dr. Kirby) for giving me this opportunity. Mary (Hutson) asked me what I took away from this experience and I said that I learned that research can be fun. In my previous experiences, I definitely did not think so! I think I finally found what area of biology I’m interested in and I’m so glad. Having super nice lab mates is a plus too. I recently got a comment from a mother who had to terminate her pregnancy because she had a child with HLH who could not be saved. She was so encouraging and motivational and really made me realize how important research is. There are people waiting out there for us to keep on working.
School starts in about a week so I need to start packing. I look forward to coming back to the Kirby lab in the fall!