Abel Ferrel, Post 1

MARC Blog 1

            I was a bit nervous about starting at my new lab because it was at the Harvard Medical School and it felt as if I needed to be at “the top of my game” to be able to keep up with my mentor. It turns out that the people in Dr. Harrison’s lab have been great. My first week was very welcoming. The members of the lab were very nice and we talked amongst ourselves to get to know each other more. We have designated “tea time” every day at 4pm where tea is literally made and it’s a break from all the lab work that you have been doing all day. Many members of the lab go to it including my summer PI, Dr. Harrison. He and I have spoken a number of times, mainly during tea time, about what I have done back at UCLA, how I have adjusted to Boston and his lab, and his history in research. In summary, the lab atmosphere has been awesome. Although I am the only undergraduate of the 20+ people here, I really feel like a member of the lab.

            My direct mentor has been patient with me as I have been working to get myself acclimated to this new field, but has a great sense of humor to lighten the mood. At UCLA, my focus was on muscular dystrophy; however, my field here is immune response and viral structural biology. That being said, the techniques here are very different from those I use at my home institution. It is molecular biology and biochemistry heavy here and we work primarily on cell cultures. Considering I have never worked with cell cultures, I was happy to see I did not contaminate my first culture. It addition to that, I am working on generating plasmid vectors to transfect cells and generate my proteins of interest.

            I have enjoyed my time here so far and look forward to the coming weeks. 

I'm excited to be working in this lab!

A sunny day in Harvard!