Profile

• Time Zone

  Eastern

  
  
• Organization

  Michigan State University

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  my research focuses on the resistance in weeds toward herbicides. weeds are unwanted plants that are growing out of place and will compete with crops of interest. Herbicides are the chemicals that are used to kill the weeds such as Roundup. My research is why some of the weeds when sprayed with herbicides won't die and what are the reasons for that. To find that out I use molecular biology in which we try to understand various genes involved by amplifying them using PCR. PCR is a polymerase chain reaction in which a DNA template is amplified using a polymerase enzyme. We can detect changes in the gene by changing the design of our PCR. With modern technology, we can also sequence and transform various genes. I am trying to get the DNA sequence of a gene of interest and sequenced it. The sequenced gene will now be transformed into a plant and will tested with various herbicides to see if it is a causal gene for resistance. Another technique i used is confocal microscopy. It is different than conventional microscopy in the sense, that we use lasers rather than visible lights. We use fluorescent dyes and proteins which glow when hit with a laser of a specified wavelength. We detect the glow and form an image. This is useful as you can see the real-time movement of proteins in the cell and can follow it over time to detect what it's doing. This cannot be done with a conventional microscope due to the small nature of proteins and the inability of proteins to interact with visible light. Another technique we used is bioinformatics. It is the use of computational resources to understand biology. As I mentioned earlier, about sequencing a gene, now you can sequence the whole genome, meaning all the genes in a species. This data can be used to dissect how various genes work and understand their regulation.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is tough about being a scientist?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):

  the toughest thing is delayed gratitude. One thing people don't realize is how slow science is. It takes years to decades of small steps in science until it turns to become useful to the public.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is a typical day like for you?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):

  the typical day is running an experiment, walking from office to lab to greenhouse to growth chambers and back to office, meeting, some reading and another experiment,

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  When and why did you decide to go into a science career?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):

  when i was a kid, i loved building (mostly breaking). things. I was always curious about how things worked and would just ask a ton of questions everyday. I was good at studies and loved science and one thing led to another and i am a scientist.

  
  
• Capacity: How many teams at a time are you comfortable working with?

  1