{"id":64873,"date":"2012-08-31T08:18:18","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T12:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=64873"},"modified":"2012-09-17T09:55:08","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T13:55:08","slug":"undergraduate-researchers-spend-a-summer-in-the-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/08\/undergraduate-researchers-spend-a-summer-in-the-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Undergraduate Researchers Spend a Summer in the Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sarah<\/a>
Sarah Grout was a SURF fellow in the research lab of Kenneth Campellone, assistant professor of molecular and cell biology. (Cindy Weiss\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sarah Grout was only six years old when a terrible stomachache at gymnastics practice led to a rushed ride to the hospital, where her appendix was removed before doctors discovered the real problem \u2013 an E. coli<\/em> infection. She spent two weeks in the hospital recovering. Sarah, now an undergraduate at UConn, spent this summer in a biology lab in Beach Hall, running RNA interference experiments for her research project on how enterohemorrhagic E. Coli<\/em>, often associated with food-borne illness, sets up its potentially fatal infection in humans.<\/p>\n

Robert \u201cBo\u201d Powers came to UConn last fall as an honors student in cognitive science. This summer he designed an artificial neural network that he will use in his research project on metonymy \u2013 what causes people to choose certain metaphor-like descriptions. For instance, he wonders, why does a waitress tell the cashier, \u201cThe ham sandwich at Table 3 wants his check.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bo<\/a>
Bo Powers conducted research overseen by Whitney Tabor, associate professor of psychology. (Cindy Weiss\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cCreative use of language has deep implications when considering how languages change within a culture, what is considered \u2018cool\u2019 or novel, and how ambiguity is resolved,\u201d he wrote in his research proposal.<\/p>\n

Grout, Powers, and 63 other students at UConn had their first full-time research experiences this summer, thanks to Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships that provided them with up to $4,000 in stipend and supply funding and the opportunity to spend 10 weeks in the lab. Thirty-nine of the students were from CLAS, and the CLAS Dean\u2019s Office provided $24,000 to the program.<\/p>\n

While many of the students have worked on research projects during the regular school year, the nine hours a week they devote then, in between classes, is much less intense. A SURF award gives them the luxury of time to do a literature search, read widely on their topic, and design their own experiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a great opportunity to be able to focus fulltime. I wouldn\u2019t be able to get this much done during the year,\u201d says Grout.<\/p>\n

The fellowships make the difference between a summer spent pursuing their passion and a summer spent job surfing.<\/p>\n

\"Devin<\/a>
Devin O\u2019Brien\u2019s research on insects was in the research group of Elizabeth Jockusch, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. (Cindy Weiss\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If he hadn\u2019t won a SURF award, says Devin O\u2019Brien, an ecology and evolutionary biology major from Ballston Spa, N.Y., \u201cI\u2019d be at home, trying to get a normal job that wouldn\u2019t further me in my career path.\u201d Instead, he spent seven hours a day, five days a week, in the lab.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, who is founder and president of the Entomology Club at UConn, studies insects from an evolutionary and development perspective. He\u2019s examining the role that three descriptively named genes \u2013 fringe, frizzled, and dishevelled \u2013 have on the appendage development of a species of red flour beetle, T. castaneum<\/em>. Appendages \u2013 legs, wings, mouths \u2013 are an area of diversity that might be responsible for an insect\u2019s success in the world.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien came to UConn as a pre-veterinary major, but found that \u201cthe more I worked with cows, the more I realized I didn\u2019t like them.\u201d After a brief stint as a pre-med major, he scaled down to insects, calling UConn \u201ca great biology school.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the eye-openers for students about lab life is how an experiment can go awry. Some have found that their carefully planned project had an outcome that was far from what they anticipated.<\/p>\n

\"Catherine<\/a>
Catherine O\u2019Brien read about the research of Nathan Alder, assistant professor of molecular and cell biology, and asked to join the group before she arrived at UConn. (Cindy Weiss\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating, but interesting, because you can come up with all new ideas to see what\u2019s going on,\u201d says Catherine O\u2019Brien, a senior majoring in molecular and cell biology. She filled two large binders with lab reports this summer.<\/p>\n

The protein she is studying is linked to various mitochondrial diseases. If biologists could find a way to study it outside the cell in a reconstituted form, it could advance research into these medical conditions, which have many variations and can affect vision, major organs, muscles, and nerves, among other things.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, who is from Old Saybrook, started out as a nursing major at Endicott College in Massachusetts. Courses she took there in genetics and microbiology turned her interest to pre-med studies, and she transferred to Clemson. But she missed New England. Before transferring to UConn, she emailed Nathan Alder, assistant professor of molecular and cell biology, to see if she could work in his lab.<\/p>\n

She now works independently in the lab, although under the supervision of a Ph.D. student in Adler\u2019s group, Ashley Long. Long encouraged her to stake out her own research territory, and O\u2019Brien says that gave her the confidence to explore her topic. In her previous research experiences at other schools, she was not allowed so much responsibility, she says.<\/p>\n

Her SURF summer has taught her that research \u201cis really a thinking process \u2013 it\u2019s about how you think and how you approach things. I couldn\u2019t have guessed I would learn so much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sixty-five undergraduates tried their skills in the lab this summer, thanks to funding from the University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":64603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-64873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 20:34:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64873"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65733,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64873\/revisions\/65733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/64603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64873"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=64873"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=64873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}