Blog Post #1

The Journey to Finalizing My Research Topic

12/10/22

I have always had a passion for science and these aspirations have led me to pursue unique opportunities. Conducting my own research was something that seemed so foreign to my ninth-grade self. However, my journey to the AP Capstone Research Program started my junior year in high school. As a junior, I was enrolled in the Biotech Experimental Design Course where I worked with a team to conduct my own research project. Last year, I worked with fruit flies and looked at the natural alternative Curcumin in reducing the seizure recovery time in bang-senstivie Drosophila melanogaster. In the AP Research class, I wanted to further explore this idea and look at other natural alternatives that are being used around the world, and test their effectiveness on treating epilepsy in fruit flies. However, the path to finalize this idea was not easy. I view this class as an expedition: you plan one thing, discover other things, and change your direction, but in the end you have a whole journey to reflect upon and cherish.

Therefore, I began the quest to find other treatments being used in lesser developed countries to treat epilepsy. I found that licorice root was a natural supplement that was commonly used as a home remedy to treat epilepsy. Licorice root is also widely available and attainable to a larger population. Once I finalized that the natural alternative I would be looking at would be licorice root, I then began looking for administration protocols. This was where the bumps came into the road. There were not specified methodologies to administer the licorice root to the flies. I contacted two researchers, who tested licorice root and Drosophila melanogaster in various studies. However, one of the researchers did not respond. After a few days of waiting, I received an email from Dr. BY Sathish Kumar, who has immensely helped the formation of my administration protocols. Once I had the methodologies laid out, I had all the components to reach one of my checkpoints in this quest: getting approved.

My research was approved and I was able to move on to the next phase in my journey: prepping for pretrials. In order to conduct my research, I needed flies, so the bs Julius seizure Drosophila melanogaster was ordered from the Bloomington Fly Stock Center. But unfortunately, after two weeks of waiting, the flies came in dead. Once again, there was an obstacle in my path and I had to get through it. I will reorder the flies and work with the company to find a better method of shipping the flies to Colorado from Indiana. Reaching this point was not easy and there will be many more obstacles as I progress through my research, but that is a necessary element of this experience. Being able to navigate through challenges, while keeping an open mindset will help me address these issues in effective ways.