Learning the basics of cell and molecular biology was where I got more intrigued with biology and wanted to take a more detailed class about genetics. After taking an Introduction to Genetics and Cell Biology (Biol. 250) my sophomore year, I felt like I was one step closer to finding out what I wanted to do with a biology degree after college. The two artifacts I chose for this page was a lab report for the introduction class (Biol. 250) and the upper level course of Genetics (Biol. 325).
I chose these two artifacts because it shows how my writing style has changed from sophomore year to junior year. The first lab report received a lot of feedback and that really helped with writing lab reports in upper level courses. I knew what professors liked and did not like in these types of reports. I’m really proud of this first report because it was my first major one I did after switching majors to biology and it was something I did all by myself since my lab partner dropped the course.
The Biology 250 lab report looked at the microbial diversity within the soil of the Appomattox River and Buffalo Creek. The project taught me how to extract genomic DNA from samples, perform PCR for the first time, run a gel electrophoresis, and interpret DNA sequencing results. These are all basic skills are essential for me to know since I want a career in a research lab after graduation.
The genetics lab report was a fantastic experiment I enjoyed helping with and writing about. It focused on synthetic biology and genetically engineering E. coli to quickly detect gunshot residue on people who have just fired a gun. The only new technique I learned from that experiment was plasmid isolation, everything else I already knew how to do. The great thing about this lab report was that it helped professors and research students here at Longwood to collect data and help write their scientific article about this project. On top of that, it was just recently accepted for an online visual science journal and I am a co-author because myself and another student will be filmed performing the protocol. I am extremely lucky because most undergraduates do not get to be co-authors until there are in graduate school.