As I spearheaded my project through the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship, I have not only developed a new set of skills, but also learned to acknowledge and reconcile with my own limitations. Moving from broad topics in my previous research like atherosclerosis and thyroid carcinoma to a focused subject like apolipoproteinC-III (apoC-III), my approach to…
Category: Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship
CURF3: my CURF reflection
Hello everyone! I had made significant progress in my research project this semester, and have learned many valuable experiences that helped me in conducting my research. In this last post, I will discuss my understanding of research, difficulties I faced during research, and reflect how my experiences in CURF helped me in becoming a experienced…
Almost (not really) finished!
Early this semester, my research mentor Dr. Swigonova explained to me the process for creating the 3D digital protein model that would eventually be 3D printed for use in teaching settings. I don’t consider myself the most competent user of technology but I was pretty confident that I could manage this new software, called Chimera….
CURF Final Post
As the semester comes to an end, so does my time as an Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Fellow. I would like to take this moment to reflect on the transformative experiences that have shaped my understanding of the research process this semester. Throughout this journey, two qualities have emerged as fundamentals to being a researcher in…
CURF 3: Conclusion
Coming into this semester, I had a limited understanding of the skills that would be required to conduct my own research project. In addition, I was unsure of how the research process would look like for a computational biology field. Since I was not going through the traditional process of coming up with a research…
CURF 3: This Semester’s Reflections
To summarize the work of my CURF fellowship, the inception of my research project began with the observation that the proteins TERT and STAT5 physically and functionally interact to increase the expression of pro-calcification genes in Calcific Aortic Valve Disease (CAVD). This insight revealed a novel pathway by which calcification develops in valvular disease and…
How the Tables Have Turned: Learning Through Teaching CUTF 2
I decided to apply to the CUTF in February 2023. Part of the reason that I applied is because I already had several ideas on what kind of project could enhance the class I was taking at the time – Functional Neuroanatomy. There are various difficult circuits that undergraduate neuroscience students learn in this class,…
My CURF: Becoming a Researcher
According to a 2021 report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Earth’s average surface temperature has reached its highest level in 125,000 years. Furthermore, many geologists believe that we have now transitioned from the Holocene (the roughly 12,000-year geological epoch which allowed sedentary human societies to develop and flourish in the first…
CURF 2: My Path to Research
Every research endeavor I have participated in thus far began with a personal connection to a lab’s disease focus. My first experience was within the Anolik laboratory at the University of Rochester Medical Center in my hometown of Rochester, NY. At the time, I became invested in my mother’s rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, and while experiencing…
Choosing research: how did I get here?
When I first started at the University of Pittsburgh, I had absolutely no intention of doing any research in molecular biology. While I’ve always harbored a love for the biological sciences and particularly the study of cell biology, I didn’t have a particular interest in the atomic details of proteins or nucleic acids and I…