Learning Through Proximity: My Experiences in TRIP Explore by Lucas Peña

My short tenure as a participant in TRIP Explore has been one of the most impactful learning experiences of my life. However, before I actually write on any of my encounters, I want to thank everyone who contributed to the conflagration of wonder that was my TRIP experience: the exceptional Dr. Austria and Dr. Purdy, our exceedingly excellent TAs Izzy and Martie, and all of the FCCC staff whom we had the pleasure of visiting and learning from (which I would name now but for the demands of brevity I am pressed not to). What made TRIP special to me was that it gave me my first ever true encounter with laboratory work, and real exposure to the day-to-day of medical scientists.

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My experiment was concerned with the negative health impacts of high sugar diets, which I believed may be mitigated through the addition of licorice. Licorice root historically has been used to alleviate maladies in a variety of bodily systems, so I believed it would be an apt match against the rather generalized effects of a poor diet. My first experiences in the lab during TRIP (sorting my flies and then conducting my first assays) are far better characterized as failures than productive lab sessions. During my first assay I even managed to drown an entire vial of flies, ruining my results. However, these early kinks eventually sorted themselves out, and by the tail end of TRIP I was deftly performing what assays remained. And what really made the difference wasn’t actually my own development, but learning from and with the rest of the group as TRIP pushed on. Once I got the hang of assays, I did learn to love them, and I cannot overstate the value of learning the techniques, practices, and manners which I gained over the course of TRIP.

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However, my favorite part of TRIP was certainly our facility tours. Our lab work was certainly an excellent way to develop as future scientists, but I consider that I learnt just as much, if not far more, in these tours being given. The most memorable of them was the cell-culture facility, in which we received a demonstration of how cells are trypsinized. Watching and critically understanding the process done in that lab taught me a great deal about the spirit of laboratory work. I obviously did not derive any experience in doing that procedure, but the exposure itself, alongside the explanation we received as we saw the process done, was edifying. It probably is best analogized as a form of cultural immersion. Just as a man made to sojourn in a foreign country will absorb some of the culture, even if he did not learn the language, I managed to derive some infinitesimal part of the essence of laboratory work from proximity to it. I distinctly remember conducting the laboratory session we had immediately after that tour very differently to how I had done earlier. The immersion continued throughout TRIP when we attended a seminar from a Swiss biotechnological corporation. Obviously, I struggled to understand much of the actual content of the presentation. However, I understood enough to be able to learn from what I was not able to comprehend; again, this is very similar to learning a language.

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These experiences comprise my time in TRIP, for which I feel blessed beyond measure for having. I wish a most excellent day to whomever reads this.