What I’ve Been Doing Lately

I don't usually talk about my life on this blog, but the past few months have been interesting and science-filled. I am now a senior in college, and I am not sure how that happened so quickly!

I spent my summer working in Christina Smolke's synthetic biology lab at Stanford on alternative splicing, the mechanism that allows genes to encode multiple functions, or more bang for the cell's buck. I had a great time living in California and working with such a friendly and talented group of people. I think about my summer experiences, both inside and outside the lab, often and with happiness.

The main reason I came to Davidson for undergrad was because of the many opportunities to do biology research. As an undergraduate-only institution, it's all about us! I am beginning work on a thesis project in the Hales lab, which studies mitochondrial dynamics during spermatogenesis in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Although introductory textbooks often treat mitochondria as bean-shaped, unchanging organelles, in fact they undergo a plethora of changes that include fusing together to form cell-wide networks and coordinated transport along tubules. My project focuses on an uncharacterized gene that seems to encode a subunit of ATP synthase, the proton-driven water wheel in mitochondria that produces ATP, the energy-carrying molecule common to all life.

While all of this is going on, I also am in the process of applying to graduate school. At this point, that means looking for potential labs, reading papers, and trying to get a sense of what programs I should apply to. My interests don't necessarily fit well into a single field, plus I'm not completely sure what my interests are! I love molecular biology in the broadest sense (genetics, genomics, systems biology, synthetic biology, ...), and I don't see myself leaving those fields. But there is a ton to choose from underneath that big umbrella.

"Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind, when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on the rock." - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein