Ziyad H.

Hi I am Ziyad and I attended session 1 of the 2026 Fred Hutch Explorers Program. In the two weeks that I have been at Fred Hutch, I’ve had many highlights that made me interested in this field and career path. There were many great experiences that helped me learn a lot about different fields in biology. But overall, my favorite lab had to be the C. elegans lab. My favorite part was how they used engineering and computational biology in their experiments. I found it especially cool that they designed and 3D printed specific chambers where they can control the oxygen and nitrogen levels. I felt like this was the first lab that we visited where there was engineering mixed with physics, chemistry, and biology which is something I am really interested in. They also use a code created to locate neurons inside the C. elegans. Another thing that I found interesting was when they dropped the oxygen levels inside a small chamber the neurons stopped flashing and got dimmer but as the released oxygen back into the chamber the neurons slowly started flashing again. It was cool to see how C. elegans don’t die do to lack of oxygen which is really fascinating. A cool fact I learned was that oxygen levels in soil is lower than in the atmosphere. The thing that made me feel so connected to this lab was how they incorporate engineering and design. I personally love designing and putting parts together and this was the first time I knew that you could connect engineering and science.

Pipetting into a gel

The lab that also stood out to me had to be the zebra fish lab. What made it stand out to me was how for every zebra fish in a specific tub they all had the same trait, for example there was a tub that had zebra fish with only thin and long fins. In addition, every single zebra fish in a tub have the same birthday. Also, a cool fact that I learned was that zebra fish can get scoliosis which is something I didn’t know before. This lab also helped me understand more about zebra fish embryo. Zebra fish embryo have a recessive trait that makes the spine fold over itself. This is a cool trait that humans are not at risk to. I loved this experience because I felt like it was so organized and I love to interact and see how living animals react to their environment.

Zebra fish with long and thin fins

To conclude I felt that the Fred Hutch Explorers Program improved my understanding of biology as a whole. I am very sad that it ended, I would look forward to the program and be exited to interact with other people every day. It also introduced me to new career paths that I hadn’t considered before. My two favorite labs that we visited were the C. elegans lab and the Zebra fish lab. But aside from all the learning experiences, I made great connections throughout the 2 weeks and had a great time playing mafia.

Filming the transition

2026 Fred Hutch Explorers Program Session 1 Cohort