I am Sarah Anderson, I am just about to finish my junior year here at SUNY Albany. I am currently working towards a Bachelor’s in Science with a double major in biology and psychology! I joined the team as an undergraduate research assistant in September of 2021 and it has been an incredible experience thus far! I will continue to gain experience in the Scimemi lab throughout the rest of 2022 and into 2023. This research has expanded my knowledge of neuroscience tenfold and continues to be a learning experience.
Being a member of the Scimemi lab has been such a great experience. From the moment I joined this lab, everyone has been incredibly welcoming and always willing to help one another out. This was very reassuring, as I had done all of my previous biology labs virtually, I was nervous that the hands-on work would present a tough learning curve. However, with the support of everyone within the Scimemi lab, the transition from virtual to in-person was made relatively easy.
Throughout the fall 2021 semester, I was learning PCR and the proper way to maintain the mouse colony by backcrossing the mice to prevent genetic drift. Towards the end of the fall semester, I began to focus on other projects that were being done by Gabrielle Todd. During the spring 2022 semester, I had transitioned to helping Gabrielle perform a dot blot that compares the glutamate transporter concentrations in wild type and Aß mice at different age cohorts. By learning each step of the complex process from Gabrielle, I was eventually able to perform protein purifications, Bradford assays and dot blots almost entirely independently. I was fortunate enough to get to present my research in the 39th Annual Biological Sciences Research Symposium. This event broadened my horizons to the range of research that is being conducted here at SUNY Albany, and it was overall a really fun event!
The opportunity that Dr. Scimemi gave me by letting me become one of the undergraduate researchers in her lab is priceless, I have learned so much and will continue to actively learn until I graduate! I can’t wait to be a part of the Scimemi lab for another year!
Sarah Anderson
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