E. coli glowing: Agar plate of E. coli, some with the red fluorescent protein gene

Staring at our plate, my lab partner and I couldn’t help but smile, tears and sweat dripping down our faces.

We had actually done it.

Our teacher had told us this would be a long, hard journey, and that some of us would not be successful. After this week-long quest, we obtained the red fluorescent treasure at the end. We were successful.

Everyone surrounded our plate and us, staring at it in awe as well.

My lab partner looked at me and said, “Our E. coli are literally glowing red! We did it!”

I first realized my passion for microbiology and research when performing a week-long experiment in my A.P. Biology course as a junior in high school. We conducted a bacterial transformation using recombinant DNA technology to insert our gene of interest– a red fluorescent protein gene– in a bacterium, Escherichia coli. As seen in the picture above, this gene allowed the bacteria to, well, glow red! It was a long process that, if not you did not follow the procedure exactly as stated and if you were not paying attention to detail, you would not get the end result.

This short but sweet experiment is a small scale example of what research is like. The process to get to an end result might be long and daunting, but once you get the result, it is like eating that cake after a week of being on a “diet.” I am painting the process as being unenjoyable, but on the contrary, it is full of exciting moments as well and each step encourages you to keep going. Even on setbacks, you learn from them and find new ways to tackle what you were working on.

As I mentioned earlier, my passion for research really started when doing this experiment. I had done other experiments, such as what factors affect the rate of photosynthesis in leaves and understanding the physiology of roly-poly bugs, but none really caught my attention as the bacterial transformation experiment. There are many branches of research that people can go into. You can be in a lab with a microscope, 60 feet underwater in the middle of the Pacific, or in the valley with hiking boots and a large bottle of water. I prefer to be with a microscope and pipette, looking at organisms that are much smaller than I am and understanding their importance and complexity.

Phytoplankton: Different species of phytoplankton collected at the Sea Center

Since there is such a diverse range of research topics, you may not know what you want to go into or what you enjoy most. It is important to try different research areas first. I knew I enjoyed microbiology, but that is still a broad category. I first combined my interest in the ocean with the smallest creatures that live in it: phytoplankton. I was in a laboratory that researched how climate-induced changes affect the physiological and community composition of phytoplankton.

Even though I enjoyed studying phytoplankton, I was drawn more towards the biomedical side of research. I downsized in the organisms I was studying to viruses, which are even smaller and less complex than phytoplankton but have huge impacts on individual people and communities at large.

In general, research allows you to explore your interests while also teaching you patience, new skills, and how to follow a procedure, because trust me, you’ll need to pay attention to all the details in order for your end result to glow as our E. coli did.