Research Series Part 4

Thushara Thomas (Thomas.3303)is a FABE major doing research at the Davis Heart and Lung Institute as an Undergraduate Research Assistant. Some of the things this lab studies include: Immunology research, role of the liver in the immune system, understanding viral/bacterial clearance from blood circulation. Some things Thushara studies are cell culture, mouse surgery, liver dissection, and protein detection experiments. She learned about this opportunity through the undergraduate research newsletter. She constantly emailed people doing anything she was even remotely interested in, started in broad departments and read about their interests, then read a recently published paper (or even just the abstract) so that she could see if she could see herself in that field and so she could ask questions in my email to the professor.

She works about 10–25 hours a week, more at the beginning to learn. There are opportunities to publish papers or present your research. If you put in the work to contribute to a project, most professors are more than happy to have you as an author. There are also so many conferences at OSU that you can participate in, as well as scholarships for funding if you need to travel for a conference.

Why did Thushara get involved in research?

“I have always been extremely curious and had the need to have the answers to everything. I have an autoimmune disorder so I wanted to understand the mechanism of how they come about in people, as they seem to come out of nowhere. The lab I joined was an immunology lab and my PI was really open to me exploring autoimmune disorders as they relate to the liver”

Advice from Thushara:

“Email everyone and see if they can at least meet up for coffee so you can learn more about what they do. The worst they can do is say no, and in that case just try the next professor. Also make sure that the lab you join is actively publishing. It helps if they have PhD students who might need help with their project because they’re really under pressure to publish papers. If you want a fulfilling experience, you have to be self driven. A lot of mentors won’t explicitly assign you work to do, so you’ll have to ask for it. If you can, try to find a mentor who’s had success mentoring other undergrad and grad students and are excited about their work”