Owen PolingJunior Biological Sciences Major In my “About Me” blog post I briefly touched on my experiences here at Pitt - one of them being my experience with undergraduate research. I decided to reflect on my research experience and hopefully along the way I can give some insight to those of you reading this blog post and thinking about getting involved in research.
The first step to beginning research is making connections with PIs, lab managers, lab owners, or related staff. This can be a tedious and seemingly unrewarding process, but it usually ends up paying off. I will say, however, that you can put yourself on the fast-track into research if you work with the FE-R (First Experiences in Research) office. I never contacted the FE-R office or got involved with them, so I cannot say anything about the process and application to FE-R, but all my friends who have worked with the office have very positive things to say about their experience. If you’re a first year or a sophomore, I would totally reach out to the FE-R office next semester, if possible. I chose not to reach out to the FE-R, and instead I contacted labs by myself – which involved some uncertainty and a good bit of time. When I went to search and apply for research positions I aimed for one lab: the Vieira Lab in the Salk Pavilion. I found out about this opportunity through the Dental Science Club and began to contact the lab manager in the spring semester of my sophomore year; I was eager to reach out to her. I sent her an email describing my interest in the lab and its publications and inquired about the possibility of working in the lab as an undergraduate researcher. When I hit the send button, the email bounced right back and displayed an error message to the likes of: “The email address you are trying to contact has been suspended from the University of Pittsburgh database”. At this point, I was confused but I decided to try once more. Again, the error message appeared. I thought that perhaps my email client was having issues, so I tried to send the email from my phone and even a different computer. I saw the error message again and again. My attempts at sending emails to the lab manager were useless, so I called the phone number listed on the Vieira Lab webpage. I called once every other day, around 10 AM for four days and never got an answer. On the fifth try, someone answered the phone! I exchanged greetings with the man on the phone and asked about the responsibilities and duties of undergrads in the lab. Then, during the middle of our conversation, the call disconnected. At this point, I was very discouraged and decided it was time to look for a different research opportunity. Still I got no answers for the rest of spring semester. It was not until the summer that I finally got an email from the Vieira Lab. The email instructed me to call the lab phone once again, so I did. A woman named Elaine picked up and told me all I needed to know about the lab, my responsibilities, and set up an interview with me. She then explained to me why all my emails were rejected and why my phone calls went unanswered. The Vieira lab was going through some serious staff changes. People were coming and going out of the lab, including the lab manager. All that time in the spring semester I was contacting an email address and phone number of an employee that had left with no replacement. Once summer ended and the fall semester of my junior year began, I started to research with the Vieira lab. I was trained in HIPAA policy, chemical spills, and lab safety and gained UPMC clearance to work with blood-borne pathogens,. Shortly after that I was trained in actual lab procedure. In the Vieira Lab, you can work in a clinical setting, or with various data entry projects. I was trained in both very quickly and effectively. I would also like to add that the Vieira Lab works on multiple projects at once. If I had to estimate, there are 8+ studies/projects being worked on right now in the lab, which creates a really cool environment because everyone is working on something different. One newer project that caught my attention was a collaborative project between the Vieira Lab and some Scandinavian Labs. The project focused on a population (~1000 people) in Sweden and attempted to find the genetic causes of some of the population’s health trends (enamel quality, obesity, etc) when compared to other neighboring populations. With the introduction of this new project, there was talk of training the undergraduates in DNA extraction, isolation, and purification techniques. As an undergrad working in this lab, I did not lead or assist in one study being done in the lab. Rather, I contributed to all of them. Though every study being done in the Vieira lab is unique, they all require two things: the health records and the DNA of the subjects involved in the study. The undergraduate researchers are responsible for the collection and handling of the biological samples, and for keeping subject databases up-to-date. So, the work of the undergraduates in the Vieira lab help the lab’s PhDs, grad students, and lab aides to work more efficiently. Moreover, when new samples are collected the genomic and health record databases are expanded, it allows for new potential research. This is a unique aspect of the Viera lab. Undergraduate researchers in the lab may not be performing individual research tasks benefiting one research study, like constructing an assay or culturing bacteria. Instead, undergrads perform tasks necessary to the lab, which facilitates the progress of all the research done in the Vieira Lab. The samples and database management my peers and I did enabled research to be done on the relation of smoking habits and dental decay, genetic markers for certain dental conditions and much more. I have nothing but positive things to say about my lab experience, despite the bumpy start. Unfortunately, I couldn’t work at the Vieira Lab this semester due to schedule conflicts, but I will resume my work there this summer. If there is anything I learned because of this experience, it is that persistence and patience are key with getting started in a research lab as an undergrad. If I had not continued to contact the Vieira lab, I would have never heard back and I would have never seen the exciting work in the Lab or had the chance to meet the wonderful staff in the lab. So, for those of you reading this, if you’re looking for research, keep your head up and contact labs as much as possible. I’m sure you have heard that a bunch, but I cannot stress it enough. It does work! With persistence, confidence, and a genuine interest in the research projects you’re applying to, something will fall into place for you.
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January 2022
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