Science

Tovey Nederveld ‘20
Cruz-Monserrate Lab Research Assistant, The James Cancer Center, Columbus, Ohio

My name is Tovey Nederveld and I am a sophomore at Denison this year. I am an anthropology/sociology major from Columbus, Ohio, and I am also pre-med. This past summer, I had an internship through The Ohio State University in The James Cancer Center.

I worked in a biomedical research lab which was centered around the pancreas. The scientists in the lab researched pancreatic cancer, chronic pancreatitis, obesity, and exercise through its relation to the pancreas. I was given my own research project to work on for the summer, learning about chronic pancreatitis, pancreatic fluid, and a protein in the pancreatic fluid called SerpinA5. SerpinA5 is only present in the pancreas when a patient has chronic pancreatitis. The major questions that I tried to answer were: What is the relationship between chronic pancreatitis and SerpinA5? Why is there only SerpinA5 in patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP)? How can we identify if SerpinA5 is a biomarker of CP and how can we use that to detect CP before it is too late to reverse the effects?

When I first got to the lab, this was a difficult task because I had only taken one biology class before. My supervisor emailed me five papers to read the night before my first day of my internship and I was overwhelmed and nervous about understanding the material and being able to have conversations about it. I got through the reading though, and each time she gave me material to read I was better able to understand it and apply it to what I was doing in the lab. I was charged with the responsibility of finding and ordering my own materials, figuring out how to go about the tests, and analyzing the results, with some guidance from my supervisor. She treated me as just another part of the team while still being hard on me, and that really helped me to develop my skills as a scientist. About a month in, I felt confident in myself and rarely had to ask for help.

In the end, all of my results were negative, but I gave a presentation to my coworkers about what I learned. This was another challenging part of the experience for me. I put together a PowerPoint with all of my results and presented it to people who were much more qualified and knowledgeable than me. I went through it with confidence, and although I had a few rough patches, I finished the presentation feeling good about all that I accomplished during the summer.

I have gained many skills that I will be able to apply to my chemistry and biology labs at Denison and have learned about all of the research that is done for the medical field. I had a great experience this summer through my internship and I am grateful for the great opportunity that I had to learn while school was not in session.

I would like to thank Dr. Cruz-Monserrate, Nikki Badi and Andrew Dangel for all of their support and mentorship this summer.

Riley Jones ’20
Field/Laboratory Technician, Iowa State University

My name’s Riley Jones, and I’m currently a sophomore pursuing a BS in Biology. Over the summer, I worked as a field/laboratory technician on a research project at Iowa State University.

The project? Compiling data about the diversity of bees found in field strips, also of varying plant diversity, in order to see how the level of diversity correlates between the two. Bees are incredibly important to the continued health of many ecosystems. I was very excited to work on a research project such as this one, especially since it balanced laboratory and field time. One of my goals going into this internship was to discover more about my personal preferences for research looked like, as I’m interested in doing field research as a career.

The month was split into two sections: the first two weeks of every month were spent in the lab, processing the specimens that were caught the previous month. To process a bee, they must be washed, dried, and have their mandibles and tongues “pulled”, or gently tugged into display position with a bent pin under a microscope. The mandible and tongues were then used to help identify the specimen’s genus and species. Did you know there are more than 300 species native to Iowa? Me neither, until this internship!

The last two weeks of a month were spent out in the field, collecting the samples. We had several ways of catching the bees, from small bowls painted blue, yellow, and white (to mimic flowers) and filled with soapy water (so the bees couldn’t fly away) to waving around large insect nets in a controlled, but still chaotic, manner to see what we catch by chance. We also implemented “targeting”, in which we patrol the strip and try to catch any bee we see land on a flower. “Targeting” is used to collect data on what sorts of flowers a specific bee collects from, in order to study if a species is specialized to certain flowers or more of a generalist. I enjoyed collection periods the most; even though we had to be at the collection site before the bees emerged from their nests at sunrise, being in the field was both peaceful and fun.

At the beginning of the internship, I was worried that the early mornings of field work would drain me, as I wouldn’t call myself a morning person. However, I learned that since I enjoyed being out in the fields and waving a net around, the early mornings balanced out. I also learned that if I go on to work in research as a career, I definitely need the outdoor field work as a balance to the indoor lab work. Luckily, figuring out those personal preferences was one of the major reasons why I wanted to work on this study! I also learned a lot about bees and how to identify some plants by their flowers/leaves, which is a bonus. While I believe bees will stay a hobby, I had a wonderful experience working at the Harris Bee Lab, and am happy I spent my summer in Iowa.

Thank you to my lovely boss, Morgan Mackert, for taking on a rising sophomore that only had classroom lab experience. Shout out to Amanda and Carly, my coworkers, who helped the lab days go faster with funny conversation, and finally to Mr. Wallace Burke and the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, for supporting me financially. Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to have this incredible learning experience.