Hey everyone!

So I have wonderful news, I finally have received an undergraduate research position. YAAY 😀 Over the summer, I got turned down by the positions I applied for because they wanted you to have previous experience or my schedule did not work with theirs. So once this semester started I met with a Professor/advisor, that a little birdie told me would get you into research. Well I am very happy because that little birdie was correct! This week I had two appointments with two different researchers to see if I could join their research. Well today I met with a PhD researcher and the PhD student I will be working under. 🙂 Although a lot of information was thrown at me, I am very excited to embark on this new experience life has given me. 🙂 I finally get to apply things I have been learning into real life!

What I will be researching: The lab I will be conducting my undergraduate research in is a cancer genetics lab. I will be responsible for looking at the an E2F protein (a transcription factor) that has two binding domains. The PhD student I will be working under has already bread mice that are wt, mutated at one domain, mutated at the other domain, and mutated at both domains. We will be trying to understand what binds to each domain (activator or receptor) and also consequences of mutation one receptor vs. the other. We will also be mutating CDC6  and cyclin A to observe their affects on the pathway as well. The cool thing about this research, is we do not know what will happen. Something like this has not been done on E2F, so we will hopefully be making some new discoveries.

Why E2F is important to research: Many tumor cells have mutations in their E2F pathway. The lab I will be working in has mutated various E2Fs and noticed that they can lead to tumor formation. So understanding the mechanism of the E2F family could be essential for understanding certain tumors (there are many other transcription factor familes that can cause tumor formation).

Anyways, that is all and if you have any questions about how I got involved in research feel free to ask.

Have a beautiful day!