Research Series: Part 5

Emma Rand (Rand.43) is a biological engineering major is an Undergraduate Research Assistant at the Leight Research Group (Clinical Cancer Center) in the Biomedical Research Tower.

The purpose of the lab is to understand how the extracellular matrix is remodeled during tumor progression and how this remodeling affects cancer cell function and treatment responsiveness.

“I have recently started to perform my own independent research where I am engineering a reduced cost and more efficient peptide. This peptide will be an internally self quenching fluorescent biosensors that uses an amino acid as a quencher. Thus, in lab I have been doing background research and preliminary data. When I am not working on my independent thesis I am assisting a graduate student by running enzyme tests and culturing cells.”

How did Emma learn about this opportunity?

“I did not know that there was an opportunity until I was asked to join the lab, I was more just interested learning about what the professor was specifically reading. I simply read information about professors doing research then I read papers of the professors that I found the most interesting. Following reading the papers I composed an email including information that I read and asked if I could meet with the professor to discuss her research and learn about possible possibilities.”

Emma works in this lab around 10 hours per week

There are opportunities to present at research forums and to be published.

“I wanted to be at the forefoot of medicine and be able to help find a cure for cancer. I also was not set on the idea of what i wanted to do after college (graduate school or industry). Thus, this gave me the opportunity to get an incite of what graduate school could look like.”

Advice from Emma: “Ask your professors about possibilities it never hurts to ask the worst response they can give you is no. Keep asking questions!”