Time has flown by since my return from China and it’s hard to believe that I have been studying at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for over a month now. While I am technically working for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), I have been placed in a lab run by The National Eye Institute. The first few weeks have been consumed by attending training classes, learning lab skills, and reading materials. More recently, my supervisor Lai Wei helped me to design my own research project that builds on my Wheaton honors thesis. We are conducting epigenetic testing to see if Panax notoginseng has an effect on the immune system’s inflammatory response. Prof. Tong mailed me some samples from the Angiogenesis lab at Wheaton to use in my experiments here. Our first in vitro experiments which used both human and mouse cells yielded some exciting results which I will be presenting to the other members of the department in an upcoming lab meeting. I look forward to continuing my research during the next month.
I am so fortunate to have been granted the opportunity to study at the NIH this summer and am thrilled that the work I am doing here is building upon what I have already learned at Wheaton as a member of Professor Tong’s Angiogenesis Research Team (“The A Team”). I feel that it is also important to acknowledge that The A Team helped prepare me in many ways for my internship experience. In addition to developing important lab skills and methods for scientific research, I learned how to become a contributing member of a research team. Perhaps the most important skill for working in any laboratory environment is the ability to interact with other lab members and to understand the dynamics of being part of a research team. During the last two years, more than 20 undergraduate students participated in the Angiogenesis Research Team, and not only succeeded in developing the final version of our zebrafish caudal fin angiogenesis model, but also developed a simple and inexpensive method to quantify angiogenesis known as Motion Based Angiogenesis Analysis (MBAA). This new method was not only published in a peer-reviewed journal, Zebrafish, but also presented at national and international meetings.
Coincidentally, Professor Tong started doing research on angiogenesis after receiving a Grant from the National Eye Institute. More than 80 students have since worked in his lab, and he has supervised many honors thesis students during his time at Wheaton. In 1999, he received another grant from the National Cancer Institute. It was at this point that his students began to refer to themselves as the A Team. Many A Team members have presented their thesis research at national meetings as I too hope to do with my own thesis research in the near future.
The spirit of the A Team extends beyond the lab. Our rivalry with Professor Morris’ Urchinology lab (“The Urchinites”) culminates in an annual competition. First year, we won in basketball and the second we again won in capture the flag. This past year, the Urchinites won a close victory in kickball but I am confident The A Team will come back strong next year. We have started planning a reunion gathering of both current and former members to have dinner and watch a DVD of the movie “The A Team” later this year.
All in all, I have learned a tremendous amount about biomedical research in the time that I have been at the NIH and continue to soak in more every day. I am more excited than ever to return to Wheaton this fall to focus on completing my honors thesis.
