Hello! My name
is Rebecca Beuschel. I am a junior Biology and Neuroscience student working in
the Grant Lab at the Science and Technology campus. My project is a branch of
the main IPF project, which is focused on discovering the possible causes of
the terminal lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). I have been a
part of this project since August 2016. This semester, my project focuses on
looking at contraction patterns of collagen, a structural protein in the
extracellular matrix, in both normal lung fibroblasts and fibroblasts from
patients with IPF. The focus is on the expression levels of multiple proteins,
including PLOD, which is involved in collagen contraction.
I initially got
interested in this project after taking cell biology with Dr. Grant during my
first semester at Mason. I expressed interest in working to discover if I
wanted to go to medical school or to focus on research and graduate school. She
gave me the opportunity to work in her lab for the Spring 2016 semester and
both train and get a taste for the IPF project. I’ve been working on this
project with the other members of the Grant Lab ever since.
Getting the
chance to work in a lab and see what research in biology was really like, I
changed my long-term goals from being a medical doctor to becoming a professor
(of something in the scope of molecular and cell biology) while also leading a
lab. Working on a project and gaining lab experience this early is just the
first step to achieving my goals in life. I’ve learned a lot of basic cell
biology and genetics lab techniques so far, and have gotten the chance to
present research. I’ve also learned how to properly convey information when
presenting – understanding how knowledgeable the audience is on my topic and
how to get the audience to understand the information.
Work is divided
between my partner and I. We do a number of things in the lab during the week:
set up collagen matrices with the cell samples in order to mimic the lung
environment, extracting RNA from these matrices and/or plates and converting it
to cDNA, setting up PCRs (polymerase chain reactions) – a method of amplifying
a certain sequence of DNA based off leader sequences, called primers, that
cover both ends of the sequence – for the cDNA, toxicity assays for specific
drugs of interest, or setting up plates for sequencing (we do a lot during the
week!).
I’ve discovered
the value of teamwork this semester. I usually work on my projects alone.
However, the magnitude of the project called for two people working together.
Collaboration makes the research process more enjoyable – more work gets done
each week, and I personally get to learn more each time I go into lab.
