Adrian Hernandez Blog 1

Hello fellow MARC trainees!

      My name is Adrian Hernandez and I recently joined the MARC program this past spring quarter. That being said, the SPUR-MARC summer program highlights the beginning of my role as a MARC scholar. For the past two weeks I have attended and learned so much from the numerous workshops relating to research and graduate level studies. I especially found the workshop on personal statements to be insightful as I am in the middle of applying to several MD-PhD programs across the nation. I have also had the opportunity to meet other MARC trainees, as well as members of other summer programs who come from other states, like Tennessee.

     As part of my summer program I am continuing my research in alternative gene splicing in the lab of Dr. Douglas Black. Currently I am working on a side project dealing with the polypyrimidine tract binding protein (PTB) which is linked to the formation of the spliceosome complex for gene splicing. I am co-transfecting certain PTB constructs with reporter genes into N2A neuroblastoma cells to see how deletions in a specific linker region within PTB leads to altered splicing of the reporter gene during gene expression.

     I have been in Dr. Black’s lab for almost two years now and recently there have been some “changes” occurring as older post-docs pack up and head out to other colleges and universities to become principle investigators and run their own labs. Most notably I have been “asked” to move from my beloved bench and desk to foreign and not-to-distant lands.

On the left you will find my old, cleaned out desk. On the right is my new, cluttered and cramped space.

 

Here is a picture of my new lab bench. As you can see I have a lot more cleaning up to do.