My First Superlab Experience

Signing up for a lab course where you have to design your own research project sounds intimidating, but the lab class I am taking this semester has been so much more fun and enriching than I could have ever expected. I had taken all kinds of lab classes before, particularly the intro biology, general chemistry, and organic chemistry labs. These classes were oftentimes fast paced and it was hard to build connections with other students besides your own lab partner. So when I signed up for BIOL 425 - Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics Superlab, I was expecting a very similar lab environment.

To my surprise, the lab environment of the class was extremely friendly and collaborative, facilitating great connections between me and my classmates. Although I work closely with my lab partner, we always share resources between tables and ask questions ranging anywhere from “What buffer are we using?” to “Can I look at the data you collected?” Something I particularly did not expect was how often we would actually use and analyze data from other groups in the class to make meaningful comparisons with.

Another thing the class does really well is normalizing running into problems when doing science: we come up with an idea for an experiment, try it, find out what doesn’t work, and try the experiment again with some changes. My lab group has run into our fair share of issues, whether it be accidentally putting antibodies in a negative control or having an antibody not bind to cells like we expect. However, there are never any “failures," and Dr. Wagner and Dr. Punt maintain a very positive environment while we problem solve and refine our experimental methods. They help guide the individual research projects each pair in the class is pursuing, and their insight and interest in our work is so inspiring.

Still to this day, my friends are always shocked to hear how excited I am to spend 6 hours in class (3 hours twice a week!), but it honestly is a class I would highly recommend to anyone interested in biology research!

- Viktoria B.