Lab Assistant -DeTomaso Lab at UCSB
During my sophomore year, I worked as the lab assistant for the marine aquaculture DeTomaso lab, located on my campus at the University of California, Santa Barabara.
As lab assistant, I executed a large assortment of tasks including, but not limited to: cleaning and feeding the research specimen Botryllus schlosseri, creating and maintaining water systems, cleaning tanks, changing filtration systems, growing and harvesting algae, checking equipment, autoclaving, and more.
While employed by the university, my boss was the lab manager, and I used my ability to take orders and direction, quick thinking, observational skills, natural intuition, and hardworking attitude to succeed in my job. I was a valuable asset to the lab and conversely, I learned a lot while working in this lab as well. Through this job I was able to learn so much about the research process and how a real lab functions, in addition to learning a lot about the research that the PI Dr. Anthony DeTomaso and his research team are currently conducting.
[Background on research in the DeTomaso Lab]
The DeTomaso Lab uses the colonial ascidian, Boytryllus schlosseri, in order to research allorecognition. Allorecognition is the ability to recognize and differentiate self from non-self, and it is a trait that naturally occurs is most organisms. Although its existance is known, allorecognition still remains largely unexplored. This is where B. schlosseri come into play; it is an excellent model organism to investigate and learn about the allogrecognition process because it has a physically experimentally accessible allogrecognition system. Generally, there is a lack of knokwledge about the proteins that react with genetic determinants, which limits our ability to understand the genetic and molecular basis of the allorecognition process. So far, the DeTomaso lab has pioneered in this field and we now understand more about fusion events that create allorecognition because of the discovery of the "fuhc" locus (fusion histocompatibility). It was exciting and humbling to work in a lab who had the first breakthrough of this kind within allorecognition research!
As lab assistant, I executed a large assortment of tasks including, but not limited to: cleaning and feeding the research specimen Botryllus schlosseri, creating and maintaining water systems, cleaning tanks, changing filtration systems, growing and harvesting algae, checking equipment, autoclaving, and more.
While employed by the university, my boss was the lab manager, and I used my ability to take orders and direction, quick thinking, observational skills, natural intuition, and hardworking attitude to succeed in my job. I was a valuable asset to the lab and conversely, I learned a lot while working in this lab as well. Through this job I was able to learn so much about the research process and how a real lab functions, in addition to learning a lot about the research that the PI Dr. Anthony DeTomaso and his research team are currently conducting.
[Background on research in the DeTomaso Lab]
The DeTomaso Lab uses the colonial ascidian, Boytryllus schlosseri, in order to research allorecognition. Allorecognition is the ability to recognize and differentiate self from non-self, and it is a trait that naturally occurs is most organisms. Although its existance is known, allorecognition still remains largely unexplored. This is where B. schlosseri come into play; it is an excellent model organism to investigate and learn about the allogrecognition process because it has a physically experimentally accessible allogrecognition system. Generally, there is a lack of knokwledge about the proteins that react with genetic determinants, which limits our ability to understand the genetic and molecular basis of the allorecognition process. So far, the DeTomaso lab has pioneered in this field and we now understand more about fusion events that create allorecognition because of the discovery of the "fuhc" locus (fusion histocompatibility). It was exciting and humbling to work in a lab who had the first breakthrough of this kind within allorecognition research!
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