During the school year, I am based at Durham School of the Arts in Durham, NC, where I have been since beginning my student teaching in Fall 2011. This summer, I have taken a “break” from teaching biology and AP biology to work in Dr. Brian Strahl’s lab at the UNC School of Medicine. In my internship experience, I have split my time 3 ways: shadowing undergraduate and graduate students, purifying and analyzing my own proteins from E. coli, and working on developing an “Introduction to Epigenetics” unit for my AP biology students. I still have yet to work independently on my own project in the lab, but I’m hoping to do that soon!
The lab, itself, works with histones. In case you’re unaware, those are proteins that, when put together, act like a spool to our thread-like DNA. If DNA is tightly wound around histones, it inhibits transcription (expression) of that particular gene; we call this heterochromatin. If the DNA is too loosely wound around the histones, it may cause over-expression of that gene; we call this euchromatin.
More specifically, Dr. Strahl’s lab is looking at ways in which the “tails” of histones can be modified, and how that may affect gene expression, as well as other cellular functions. It’s pretty complicated stuff, but I’m hoping to make the material accessible to high school students when I develop my curriculum product later this summer!
When I applied for a Kenan Fellowship, I did so because I wanted some practical, hands-on science experience. What I did not anticipate were the friendships and networking opportunities that I quickly developed with the other fellows during our time at NCCAT. I had been told by friends and colleagues that a Kenan Fellowship was the best PD I could ever do, and boy–were they right! By the time I finish my internship, I hope to take lab skills, content knowledge, and guest speakers (maybe?!) back to my classroom. Every year I try to have a different focus or case study for my unit on the Scientific Method. This year, I have a wonderful project on histone modifications to share with them!
Below are pictures of me and my mentor, Dr. Brian Strahl, as well as a picture with Dr. Erin Shanle, a SPIRE postdoctoral fellow in the Strahl lab.
Me and Erin Shanle, PhD