In the two weeks I’ve been at Fred Hutch I fell in love with it. These two weeks have completely changed my career choice and also inspired to become a researcher here at the Fred Hutch. My favorite experience was visiting the labs here at the Fred Hutch. It was a great experience and absolutely jaw dropping. What was really nice about the labs we visited was that they were real labs that were researching while we toured the lab. One lab that I thought was the coolest lab in the world was the Jim Olson’s Lab, also known as Project Violet. Eric Scott Nealy (man on my left), a researcher in this lab, talked about childhood brain tumors and how they find out if someone has a brain tumor. I was never interested in brain tumors until he came and spoke to us about it.
Another great thing about this programs is all of the information and concepts we learn during the two weeks. One of the concepts includes CRISPR. The main use of CRISPR is that it is a gene editing tool. Even though there are other ways to edit genes, scientists use CRISPR because it’s cheap, easy, and precise. What’s really fascinating about CRISPR is that it comes from nature. The background behind it is that CRISPR comes from a bacteria’s immune system. CRISPR is composed of two parts, a Cas 9 protein and also a guide RNA. The way that CRISPR works is that it targets a specific DNA sequence, then binds to the DNA, cuts a double strand cut and then the body tries to repair the cut. What’s really nice about CRISPR is that by cutting a DNA you can then put DNA bases of your choice which can make the cell glow or change its features. We had an opportunity to use CRISPR and a BRCA 1 gene, the gene responsible for breast cancer, and ran it through a gel as a lab. It was a lot of fun.
These two weeks was the best part of my entire summer. It was very inspiring and I really appreciate the opportunity to come to this program. I have met many great and inspiring people that have both taught me a lot while having fun.
