This position appealed to me for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, bone mass pertains a lot to dentistry, especially when considering that teeth are embedded in bone. The knowledge from this site can allow me to dive deeper into something I am very passionate about and start learning more inclusively about it. Being able to perform research is such an incredible experience to have as an undergraduate student and I am beyond honored to get to work alongside such experienced and prestigious researchers. This internship will allow me to gain so many valuable skills that I hope to carry with me to not only graduate school, but my professional future as well. While I do really enjoy the relation to dentistry that this position has, I am very excited to study bone, which is something I have never really put much consideration into before hearing about this position. I am eager to apply my knowledge and skills attained from my courses to real life scenarios and conditions.

SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

Throughout this internship so far, I have experienced many things that have allowed me to grow as a person. One of the largest challenges I have faced so far was turning in a set of collected data that did not match the expected results. Due to the unprecedented and adverse affects of the COVID-19 pandemic, some data collection has been done at home to avoid overcrowding in the lab, so the slides for this set of data were imaged and analyzed at home. The imaging caused a decrease in the quality of these slides, causing my counts of living and dead cells to be incorrect. For me, it was very disappointing and discouraging, as I put a lot of both time and effort into the data I collected. However, this challenge made me realize that in the field of research, complications such as these should not be dead ends, but rather hurdles that need to be overcome to improve the research. The following week, I went into the lab in person with a positive attitude and counted the slides live, which in the end presented much more accurate and precise data. Although it was very discouraging, it taught me to not take failure with a heavy heart, but instead to turn around and find ways to improve.

Moving past this experience however, I have found a lot of success in a variety of other areas. I have learned to become much more consistent with my data collection by checking it multiple times before submission to ensure accuracy. As mentioned above, I worked to measure the length of dendrites on cells which was done with a high level of accuracy and ended up supporting, yet also adding further questions to the desired results. Another strong improvements I've felt myself make during my time here is having more confidence in myself. At first, I was very weary and hesitant about many things and didn't really trust myself to accurately complete work. I felt that in order to be successful, you needed to have years upon years of experience in research. However, the more I worked in the lab setting collecting data, I have found myself excited and even eager to continue to work on projects. I felt a new sort of belonging and interest in this area of research to the point where turning in data I collected resulted in a sense of pride and accomplishment for me. I no longer feel shy when having to ask questions about techniques or mechanisms, but instead use it as a chance to gain knowledge from more experienced researchers.

EXPECTATIONS VS REALITY

My expectations of the world of research have definitely been brought to a reality check during my time at my site. I believe the largest realization is how much trial and error goes into creating sufficient data. There are times where previous data and reasoning all point towards one outcome, but as the experiment unfolds, a completely unexpected result arises. When this happens, a lot of data and information has to be rewired and looked at from a new perspective to understand how it could have occurred. I feel as though the media often portrays science research so straightforward with the desired result coming out perfectly on the first trial. In reality, there are a lot of times where the results don't match what you were expecting. This requires a lot of thinking outside of the box and making new inferences with your data to conclude why things happened the way they did.

MY IMPACT

Overall, my part in the research played the role of have a better understanding of the role that Kalirin, a GTP-exchange factor protein, plays with osteoblasts and osteocytes. When the gene for Kalirin is removed from osteoblasts and therefore osteocytes, they experienced higher levels of death and higher bone mass. With the mice experiencing higher bone mass with more bone cell death, we can infer that there will be a decrease in the bone quality. In the future, more studies can be performed to get a true understanding of why this happens, as well as if there will be an actual decrease in the bone quality. While this is only a small piece to the puzzle of bone loss, this contribution allows us to better understand the different components of bone and how they all come together to play a part in a bone disease that affects many.