Taylor Brown Blog 1

Hello! (:

My name is Taylor Brown, and I am an incoming 3^rd year MIMG (Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics) major and Biomedical Research minor at UCLA. I work in the laboratory of Dr. Heather R. Christofk, which studies novel genes and signaling events that contribute to metabolic transitions in human health and disease. I have been accepted into the MARC program, and am doing research on my own independent project this summer. My project is focused on viral ribonucleotide reductase small subunit (RRM2), an enzyme that catalyzes the reaction of ribonucleotides to deoxyribonucleotides. In a nutshell, the goal of my project is to better characterize how specific amino acid differences between human RRM2 and its viral homolog lead to potentially altered enzymatic function, and how these differences promote viral replication in the host cell.

After graduating from UCLA with a degree in MIMG, I will continue my education by pursuing a Ph.D in Cancer Biology or a related field. My goal is to continue working in cancer labs (and other labs with interesting topics as well) to gain more research experience, to better understand the scientific process, and to acquire background knowledge on cancer in general. I hope to become an effective cancer researcher, and to hopefully run my own lab one day, so I can apply the knowledge I have acquired through my research and schooling to develop therapeutic drugs and to help cancer patients worldwide.

I will be keeping you updated on my research progress this summer through this blog (as well as fun stuff too!). Hope you enjoy reading, and nice to meet you! :)

-Taylor

(p.s. don’t worry, my gloves were clean in this photo haha)