It’s sort of a given that if you’re working in a medical research lab, you’re going to be surrounded by really smart people. Even if they don’t bear the title of Principal Investigator, everyone I’ve been surrounded by for the past few days has clearly radiated intellectual prowess. On Monday, I witnessed this phenomenon times a hundred, with a visit to the Genetics building for the monthly inter-lab meeting. The point of these monthly meetings, or “journal club”, is for different people to present scientific research that relates to their current field of study. Whether it’s a new technique that could serve as a better alternative to an existing one, or a particularly interesting set of data that reveals a finding that may change the course of their own research, journal clubs are designed to keep the researchers updated and informed.
When we all started learning foreign languages as sixth graders at Cary Academy, we often searched for words that we recognized in a sentence and used context clue to figure out what was being said. As an avid language learner, I was excited to try to use this strategy to get the most out of the lab meeting. However, I quickly realized that the tactic I used to get through those first few Spanish classes was not going to work when trying to understand complicated molecular biology and genetics. Through my exposure to the sciences especially, I’ve recognized the importance of building a solid foundation of knowledge from which to build off of. If your foundation is weak, you won’t be able to grasp more complicated topics. I’ll be very honest: a lot of the advanced concepts that were presented in the meeting flew straight over my head. In fact, there isn’t very much of the presented research that I could specifically reference and clearly describe right now, even just a day after attending the meting. However, what I did appreciate and enjoy was the engagement and discussion from the rest of the audience following the presentations. People weren’t afraid to challenge the claims made through certain charts and figures or to express their genuine interest in learning more about the subject.
While I may not have learned much actual science today, I did learn a lot about how science is communicated in a practical way. For example, graphs and figures need to be understandable and clear in order to deliver the intended message. One of the really interesting figures that we looked at in the meeting was a 3-D online model of the data that could be spun around to view from all angles. I also recognized how much effort scientists around the world put into making sure that their research can be shared, exemplified through the intricate 3-D online model.