Hughes Mentor:  Charles Aquadro

Department: Molecular Biology and Genetics

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A Day In The Life…

How I originally got into the Aquadro lab was due in part to luck. Near the end of my fall semester Freshman year, I knew I wanted to start working in a lab during spring. So I decided my first step would be to go to an undergraduate Biology happy hour and try to find leads on who would accept an undergraduate freshman into their lab next semester. At the happy hour, the first person I ended up speaking to was Dr. Aquadro. For some reason or another I happen to find myself standing next to him around the time another person was done talking to him. So I struck up a conversation and told him my interests, which included genetics and evolution, and I explained how I had past experience working in a lab. Dr. Aquadro explained he knew the professor I had worked with, and after a few more moments Dr. Aquadro suggested that I stop by his lab the following week. Within a week I had gained a position in Dr. Aquadro’s lab for the spring semester.

Over the past couple of summers and semesters, I have done a lot with my time here. It is hard to say what an ‘average’ day in the Aquadro lab is. Generally, it involves continuing the work on my various projects. Most of the time, I start a new one as another is ending, so there’s always some overlap. What my projects entail are generally sequencing of specific genes, and then running tests on the sequences.

The model organism the Aquadro lab uses is mainly Drosophila. I would definitely say that my past experience working with Drosophila is one the reasons Dr. Aquadro accepted me into his lab. Knowing how to collect flies was a big step that I didn’t need training in.

What I did need training in was the methodology behind a lot of the tests I used for analysis. While the bench work was easy enough to learn, and the theory behind it easy as well (e.g. polymerase chain reaction {PCR}), a lot of the analytic tests I used were based heavily on statistics, math and aspects of genetics I had yet encountered. A lot of my time early on was reading about the tests I was, and did, eventually use. This was definitely a bit of work, since as a Freshman I was reading a textbook and material that upper classmen and graduate students usually learn (Halliburton’s “Introduction to Population Genetics). In all honesty, I didn’t grasp the material until I had gone through the tests with actual data multiple times. At times it was frustrating since I was use to learning something once and understanding it, but here I had to go through the process multiple times before I remembered what was going on. But I think that should be expected when you enter a lab setting. Unfortunately, you’re not sitting down and studying, you’re conducting the process, and when you’re done, it is time to move on. So the retention factor is definitely different depending on how frequent you use a technique. For instance, I learned very quickly how to do a PCR because I did it every day. But using tests such as Tajima’s D and HKA were hard to remember since I used them only when I had finalized data, a step that occurred maybe every two, three months in the beginning.

Despite having a lot more time left in the lab (two more years), I have all ready gained a lot in terms of experience and personal growth. While I would never say I lacked self confidence, working in a lab has made me feel more dependable nonetheless. For the first project a lot of what I did was double checked, which makes sense. But now, a lot of the time I’m just given a gene of interest, and I independently go off and work on it. When I get my results, I show them. It is empowering to have people trust your skill and abilities enough to just accept your results and not question if you did this or that step correctly. It was a confidence booster, and I would think the same goes for any lab work.

I really enjoy research, I all ready know I’ll be going for my post doc after undergraduate school. So for me, when I divide my time between academics and research, I put more time into research than others probably do. There’s also the added benefit that with the work I do, there’s a lot of downtime between steps. And if I have a heavy workload, I can get a bit of it done while I’m waiting for reactions to finish. So that gives me some flexibility in my work schedule. But as far as what others should do, it comes down to how much you enjoy what you are doing. If you really like research, and you’re in a lab, I say put in as much time as you can. The experience you get from real lab work is much different than from a class. And I’d like to think that you grow more as an individual doing actual research than in a classroom.

Research in the Aquadro lab has been a very positive experience. I look forward to working two more years here, and seeing where I go. And I hope that if you’re interested in research as well, you create for yourself the opportunity to give lab work a shot. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

A Day in the Life of an Undergraduate in the Lab

Watching lots of movies about scientists and researchers, my love of research grew more and more. However, I decided to enter the research field only after I became a student at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, where I discovered that many of the questions I am interested in remained unsolved. The path to become an undergraduate researcher is not that easy. The research committee in Qatar looks for students who have high accumulative GPA and who show interest during the labs. Although it was the time to have a big vacation after finishing pre-med, I decided to come to Ithaca to be part of the Aquadro lab and do research for the first time. I decided to come to the Aquadro lab because it combines two of my best fields, mathematics and genetics.

In the Aquadro lab, we deal with population genetics and investigate the genes of drosophila that are under the process of evolution in order to understand the forces that make genes evolve. In order to understand the Aquadro lab, undergrads should at least have taken a genetics course and calculus course.

My research project focused on determining the genes under positive selection in the germline stem cell differentiation pathway in drosophila. To answer my research question, I need to do the following procedure in the lab. First, I have to do genomic DNA extraction from drosophila. Then I have to amplify the sequences that I want to study. The sequences I am working on are mei-p26 and fused, both are important regulatory factors for germline stem cell differentiation. After I amplify, I run them on 1% gel to check if I am amplifying the correct sequences using sizes as a measure. Then I do the sequencing reaction for the specified genes using internal primers. Finally, I align the sequences and test for positive selection using statistical tests.

To be interested in the Aquadro lab, you have to love genetics; if you are interested in genetics and mathematics, it will be the lab you are looking for. You also, need to be a fan of evolution and believe in evolution. Students who like to use statistical tests and to understand the forces that underline evolution should go directly to the Aquadro lab.

This experience made me realize many of my characteristics. One of them is patience. Research makes you learn how to be patient because not all the experiments will work from the first time and you have to redo them again and again until they work. Also, I am eager to know how things work especially how things evolve. This research opportunity made me think about continuing research beside my work as a physician.