This summer I was able to work for the National Institutes of Health. I worked in the NIDDK, or the Institute for Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney diseases. The NIH is located in Bethesda, MD, but I was lucky enough to live in DC for the summer. My lab was looking at the effects of a certain growth factor, TGF-Beta, on different tissues of the body in regards to diabetes and obesity. My work was primarily with neurons, which was unexpected because I had literally no neuroscience background when I entered the lab! I had to do a lot of hard work and reading in order to get a handle on what I was doing, but it has been totally worth it. Just learning about how to learn all the new topics for lab research has been a great skill in itself. I think that is one of my biggest takeaways from this experience. Lab work isn’t about knowing a ton about your topic of research, but having the mind to ask the right questions.
Alexandra Marrone ’16 conducting lab research at the National Institutes of Health.