For this past semester I was fortunate enough to participate in research over at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center through the Biomedical Research Program, which was coordinated through the Honors Program. I worked in the Pulmonary Biology and Neonatology lab under the supervision of Dr. Debora Sinner where we worked on figuring out the pathways related to cartilage ring development in the trachea. I started right as the semester did and was in the lab for about 8 hours a week. For the majority of the semester Dr. Sinner was right there with me giving me articles to read and teaching me many techniques that ranged from making gels all the way to making probes that would later be inserted into embryos and match up with a specific DNA sequence. Essentially my role in all of this was to absorb and learn everything she was teaching me so that one day I could be able to do this all on my own. I chose to engage in research because it is such a big part of medicine, a field I eventually hope to practice and be apart of as a physician. Not only that, but I had a strong exposure to the clinical side of medicine but not the research portion so by immersing myself in research for a whole semester, I came out having a much better understanding and appreciation for the value that research has in our society and especially in the field of medicine. All in all, I never thought of pursuing a dual degree such as and MD/PhD, I always figured I would obtain an regular MD and was closed off to the idea of any other sort of degree. While I won’t say I’m fully convinced on getting a PhD yet, this experience has opened my eyes up to the possibility and has taught me that I should never make a judgment about something before I actually fully experience it for myself, and that is something that I will take with me not only for the rest of my academic career, but for the rest of my life as well.
Below is a trachea with a in-situ probe inserted for the HoxA3 gene
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