My past research was with Dr. Laura Reed, whose interests are in studying genotype by diet interactions that underlie complex metabolic disease (Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes) using Drosophila as a model system. Over the past 3.5 years working with Dr. Reed, I have learned fly stock maintenance, RT-PCR, RNA primer design, as well as how to use various software packages including JMP, SPSS, and Geneious. I have contributed to three projects while in the lab, studying pupal adhesion genes, endocannabinoids, and the roles of genotype by diet interactions in modulating pupal weight and have formally presented the findings from these projects at various research conferences.

During my senior year of high school, summer 2012, and winter break 2013, I worked in Dr. Wayne Orr´s lab studying the effects of glucose and Advanced Glycated End Products (AGEs) on human aortic endothelial cells in an atherosclerosis model. The research skills I obtained from working in the Orr lab include lab notebook maintenance, Western Blotting, qRT-PCR, mRNA isolation, DNA electrophoresis, cell culture, and fluorescent staining. I also helped assist the lab manager in mouse surgeries and collection of biological samples.