DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

 Su Mya Mya Thinn

 CCNY NSF-REU

Reflection

 

I participated in NSF-REU program (Research Experience for Undergraduate)and it was a great experience to work with researchers during summer in the City College of New York. In the research lab, I worked with my mentor Dr. Kamilah Ali, post-doctoral students and undergraduate students.

 

My research lab has been focusing on the role of Apolipoprotein D in atherosclerosis since there is few information known about Apolipoprotein D.  In the lab, they used LDL receptor knockout and ApoD knockout mice to identify the role of ApoD.  There are several techniques that used in my research experiments and my part of project was performing the assay for cholesterol, triglycerides and phospholipids, and then, I also used Fast Protein Liquid Chromatography to separate the lipid protein by size and perform the assay for FPLC fraction. And also, the most and common technique that I used is Western Blot. Western blot was used to confirm and identify the sizes and differences of apolipoprotein from different plasma samples. Therefore ImageJ software was used to check the difference of the bands.

 

I took Biotechniques class before participating in the research with Dr. Thomas Onorato in LaGuardia community college which really helped me to understand the importance of being in the research lab. Since I had learned using micropipetting and PCR techniques, I had no problem in pipetting accurately and when I performed PCR, I knew the procedure step by step and can predict the outcome.

 

During the 10 weeks of being in the research lab, I learned a lot of new techniques and the importance of being a researcher. I love working in the lab and I would like to continue my career as pharmacologist in the future by investigating how medicine interact with biological system and researching to predict the effect of drug in human body.

 

I would like to thank to Dr.Thomas Onorato for recommending me to precipitate in this program and also thank to my mentor Dr.Kamilah Ali for helping and teaching me news things in her lab. And I really appreciate having this opportunity in the City College of New York. It was a great experience overall and I am glad to have participated in the program.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.