Student Research at Duke

I don’t think I could have had a more enjoyable experience this summer working and learning. Being in a lab is like being in another world–it’s quite cut off from the realities outside, but the things you investigate are very real.

After completing the poster, I’m very pleased with what I’ve done, but it’s even more exciting to think of what more could be done to get a fuller picture and a more complete answer to the question posed. So I’m glad that Dr. Nijhout will let me continue during the school year. I was planning to work on both Precis and Manduca, but I realized that I could only complete the project on Precis alone within the given time frame. Even so, I will need more data on Precis, since my wings only go to the 3rd and 4th days of development in the 5th instar, and it would be nice to get them up till the pupal stage.

Overall, HH has been amazing…not only did I get to work with an expert mentor, but I got a feel for what other labs, and other scientists, do through the weekly seminars. Starting off research this way couldn’t have been better.

If anything, scienctific discovery is a very slow process that requires years of dedicated commitment. The results, however, definitely make every effort worthwhile. What I can honestly say about researching this summer is that 8 weeks is nowhere near enough time to complete a worthy science project–I’ll be able to produce some results, but I won’t have the time to replicate them. I feel that if I could repeat my project again, everything will go much smoother because things had to be figured out as time progressed. The processes of retrieving data require massive amounts of time, and mistakes are inevitable, further delaying progress. In this sense, research truly tests one’s patience and I want to say that all the scientists who have actually produced admirable results were able to realize their goals by having tremendous patience over the course of the years. Thus, any misconceptions that I had had of science being a rather quick process (that experiments are fast and are quick to yield results) have all been dispelled. But this program has made me want to spend more time to conduct further research so that I may actually grasp more of the things in my discipline as well as familarize myself with other research techniques and ways of thinking. And I’m definitely excited that I have 3 more years at Duke to expand my knowledge of science, so that I’ll be able to better understand and apply my research.

 One thing, I think, that distinguishes research from other careers is the freedom that you get to pursue your questions. It’s a very self-driven career; there’s really no one else to tell you what to do because there are simply too many unanswered and unasked questions out there. This makes research both exciting and risky…you never know what you might end up discovering, or you might find that you really aren’t capable of answering your question at the moment.

Dr. Nijhout’s lab

Where I did my dissecting (the scope under the blue cover). The tank (on the left) is full of carbon dioxide for anaesthesizing the larvae before dissection.

Dr. Nijhout, Laura the lab tech (in green), and some of the grad students)

 Manduca larvae

 Precis larvae (much smaller than Manducas)

Manduca Wing Disk

Precis Wing Disk