Prior to joining the CCSF Biotechnology program, I had completed a B.S. in Biology at UC Santa Barbara. My long-term goal is to pursue a Ph.D. in regenerative medicine. I learned about the program on Handshake, an online job platform for college students, and thought it would be a great opportunity for me to gain practical lab skills and hands-on research experience to jump-start a career in science. 

I completed my internship at the Jan lab at UCSF which studies the development and function of the nervous system. My internship project involved investigating Drosophila melanogaster as a model for the mechanisms and molecular components that drive acute-to-chronic pain. To do this I developed an analysis pipeline and performed thermal nociception assays on the fruit flies. Our design of an arrowhead thermal probe yielded new and supporting data regarding temperature specificity in Trp ion channels, trpA1 and painless, that govern pain transduction. Drosophila with a loss of trpA1 elicit no response at low noxious temperatures and display latency to respond at high noxious temperatures. Loss of painless results in a similar temperature specificity but to a lesser degree. These types of studies, supported by the development of less expensive research instruments, should allow scientists to more readily investigate chronic pain and develop future therapeutics. The internship not only honed my technical skills but also shaped the way I troubleshoot problems and conceptualize the work at hand. I look forward to utilizing these skills and leveraging this research experience in the next steps of my career as a research associate.