Cold Spring Harbor, New York — We’ve submitted our reports, given our final presentations and reminisced over our slide show. We’ve exchanged our photos, moved out of our room and said our goodbyes. My research experience as a URP at CSHL has drawn to a close. What a defining summer it has been! From attending weekly faculty talks to giving my own talks, and from auditing seminars in the Gene Expression course to competing against that course’s team in the annual Plate Race, I discovered that I really feel at home in a dynamic research environment. From barbequing with graduate students to dining with renowned scientists, and from sailing in the lab’s “Double Helix” sailboat to climbing the Double Helix sculpture, I found that I thoroughly enjoy living and playing with scientists. I now know, more than ever, that I want to be a scientist. And what’s more, I’ve been blessed with everything an aspiring scientist could want: research experience, career advice and a support group.

My research project has been more successful than even I initially anticipated. I completed my project goal, a new visualization interface for the gene expression data in WormBase. WormView, as we call it, is available at http://dev.wormbase.org/db/gene/expression for demonstration. Type in a gene name, and my Perl program will find the gene’s expression data and draw an image that visualizes the data. In addition, the worm image is an entry point for a new search tool. WormMap, as we call it, searches by tissue, rather than by gene. Just scroll your mouse over the worm image and click! There is still much room for improvement, but this summer, I’ve shown that the concept really can work. As more and more data is added to databases like WormBase, scientists will be increasingly pressed for digestible and efficient ways to access that data, and it’s this growing need that my project directly addresses. I hope WormView and WormMap will help researchers in the future!

In addition to learning bioinformatics firsthand, I’ve gained advice and insight about applying to graduate schools and pursuing a scientific career from some of the leading scientists of the world. I’ve dined and conversed with the CSHL chancellor, president and dean in their homes! I’ve met countless other scientists in all different stages of their careers: graduate students, postdocs and principal investigators. Most have been more than willing to share their stories and offer me advice. I now believe that a scientific career is an achievable goal for me.

Finally, I’ve bonded with a support group of 23 other URPs who share the same interests and goals. I am really going to miss everyone! We’ve already made plans to meet in the coming year, and we all hope to see each other at graduate school interviews. I have a feeling that I’ll be seeing these 23 friends again as we all progress in our scientific careers. In my first entry, I said I would be immersing in the culture of science and learning the language of Perl programming. Now I feel at home with both the culture and the language, and I believe that I am well-equipped to pursue the next stage of my scientific training. I cannot imagine a more worthwhile – and fun! – summer than the one I just had.

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