RaMP - Kottyan Lab
My Involvement:
After being selected as a Lab Assistant within the RaMP program by my mentor Molly Shook, I started my involvement with the Kottyan Lab at CCHMC. The Kottyan Lab worked to investigate the filaggrin gene in terms of relation to atopic dermatitis and allergies and how the gene sequence can lead to susceptibility. Specifically, I used specific lab techniques to investigate if certain alleles have preference to nuclear proteins. I completed EMSAs, Western Blots, cell passaging, and nuclear lysates while using step-by-step protocols to ensure the hopeful accuracy of the experiment to use the data to contribute to the research. I would document the experiments within a lab notebook to remember my results and keep the steps to the experiments for doing it again in the future.
My Learning:
The lab itself taught me scientific protocols that can be followed within a laboratory setting which was mostly new for me. I learned skills such as using a micropipette, creating Master Mixes with combinations of cellular quantity and other liquids needed, counting cells, and more. These skills are important for basic laboratory techniques, something that can be useful for my hopes in being involved in a lab again sometime before finishing my undergraduate studies.
Personally, I learned about patience and slowing down the process. Since coming to UC, I have tried to plan out every detail of my future, hoping to graduate early, take these courses, and do these extracurriculars. I tried to make everything fit into a mold of pressure and perfection that would never happen. While working in the lab, I realized how slow the process of experiments is, for we would be on the same experiment for weeks at a time. I thought it would be quick, finalizing something within a few hours, but this was certainly not the case. With things being slow in the lab, it inspired me to understand my life can slow down too. With this in mind, I took pressure off myself to graduate a year early, and am now aiming for a semester early. I decided that I don't have to follow a set plan and that I can have goals, but they might not work out and that is fine. Further, I learned how balanced my schedule would need to be with the lab and that there are no problems with prioritizing yourself. Between a busy academic schedule, a social life, volunteer work, and the lab, I found myself losing time to have a moment to simply breathe. Making a schedule using a planner helped me to balance out what I was doing when and how to best make time for classes, the lab, and spending time with friends.
Overall, strengthening both these practical and personal skills taught me the value of working within the lab and push me to want to experience it more within my future.
Moving Forward:
Moving forward, I hope to find myself working in a lab again before my undergraduate studies are complete. I hope to find a lab that continues to combine using techniques that are frequent and can prepare me for potential jobs within my future, but also be specific. While in the lab, under the work of my mentor Molly Shook, I learned how much a mentor can want to teach you and be passionate about my own learning. I was originally under the impression that usually adults in these situations do not care much for the learning, but I was wrong. Building a new understanding that people in these positions who can mentor or coach younger adults and show them new opportunities inspired me to try to pursue shadowing of a Genetic Counselor. Shadowing is a great opportunity to look competitive for graduate school and can help show me if the job is truly something I can see myself doing in the future. Overall, working in the lab represented my interests in science and how it can be combined with the empathetic attributes of wanting to help others, something that has brought me to the passions of Genetic Counseling.