Completion of this project has given me significant practice in a number of the NACE career competencies. The first is communication. This project required that I (three times) communicate the background information, hypothesis, and goals to a committee that determined whether or not to fund my work. I have provided multiple updates to the Office of Research for Undergraduates, and presented at last year's undergraduate research forum. Repeatedly, I have been asked to communicate my hypothesis, methods, and findings, as well as their significance. This has strengthened my ability to communicate with both a specialist and non-specialist audience. The second career readiness competency that this project helped me to develop is critical thinking. This procedure faced multiple setbacks that each required problem-solving to resolve. From discovering that certain reagents were light sensitive to disassembling and reassembling a spectrometer, this project has strengthened my ability to identify a problem and innovate around it. Finally, my work in this field of research has expanded my understanding of technology. As part of the new assay I developed, I worked with Dr. Kiss in the Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics to create a protocol using their SpectraMax Id5 spectrometer to record data. This required familiarization with equipment I had not used before, and expanded my understanding of the technology used to conduct scientific research.