I have really enjoyed my research on ovarian cancer – there is so much to learn about the goals of the project as well as the specifics of how pax genes play a part in the oviduct. Learning all of the details of the research in our short time over the summer is definitely a challenge, but every day I gain a little bit more understanding, and I’ve done my best to really spend time with important concepts and read other papers related to our research. This type of research (wet lab) is pretty new to me, so most of what I have learned here has been new. Getting in the habit of running experiments and slowly becoming more sure of yourself has been nice, and I like that every time I feel like I have a hand on what I have learned, there is something new to do and be challenged with. I love the wet lab work, but I have also gained a lot of skills in image analysis and microscopy, and I think that will be very helpful in the future.
I think identifying as a woman plays into my research, since it is on ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer affects a lot of people, and epithelial ovarian cancer is the most common type (and that is the one we are studying). There are also clear racial disparities in survival rates of ovarian cancer. I think that I am interested in how ovarian cancer affects different groups, and I think reducing survival disparities is incredibly important, even if that is not the main focus of our research.