Step #1 to Becoming a Successful Researcher: Trust Yourself by Erin Suter

The last few weeks of TRIP have been experiences I will never forget. In these past few weeks, I have researched an assigned topic, mine being the effects of sugar and St. John’s Wort on anxiety, analyzed the data and presented it. The number one take away from this “practice” was to not be afraid of unexpected results, being my results were almost completely inconclusive. The learning experience was pushing aside the word perfection and looking more in depth to why my results were the way they were. I feel that the inconclusiveness of my data taught me more than what conclusive data would have. 

Now that the assigned projects are over though, we are moving on to our chosen independent research topics. When time came to pick my independent research topic, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. After hours of brainstorming, I decided it would be interesting to investigate the effects of nicotine and vape juice on fruit fly sociability and aggression using the social space assay. I couldn’t help but question myself though: Was my topic good enough? Could I actually calculate the dosage of this drug for a fruit fly? Am I going to mess up in the process? To help myself conquer this self doubt, I decided to ask myself even more questions, but with a change in tone. Why is this topic important to me? How can I make sure my calculations are correct? How do I measure the effects of these drugs on flies?

Now that the assigned projects are over though, we are moving on to our chosen independent research topics. When time came to pick my independent research topic, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. After hours of brainstorming, I decided it would be interesting to investigate the effects of nicotine and vape juice on fruit fly sociability and aggression using the social space assay. I couldn’t help but question myself though: Was my topic good enough? Could I actually calculate the dosage of this drug for a fruit fly? Am I going to mess up in the process? To help myself conquer this self doubt, I decided to ask myself even more questions, but with a change in tone. Why is this topic important to me? How can I make sure my calculations are correct? How do I measure the effects of these drugs on flies?

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I decided it would be interesting to investigate the effects of nicotine and vape juice on fruit fly sociability and aggression using the social space assay.

I quickly got to work. I chose to make my project about vaping and nicotine because of how frequently I run into my peers consuming/inhaling these drugs in school bathrooms. I know with drugs such as cocaine, your moods can change drastically and can also make you more anti-social. Since little is still known about effects of vaping, especially the vape juice itself, I became curious of how it affected my peer’s sociability and possibly aggression levels. A common stereotype of people taking drugs is that they are dangerous and not the same. Does this stereotype hold true with vaping? Just this change in tone allowed me to believe in my reasoning and the process. I am confident my topic is significant and will help to inform people in my community of any unforeseen consequences of vaping. When I arrived at the TRIP lab on March 12th, I was very excited to start my project and hopefully begin the journey to discovering the answers to my many questions. My only setback was my drug calculations.

As I mentioned previously, I had a LOT of calculations to do because I had to take the dosage of vape and nicotine for an adult human and convert it to the dosage for an adult fly. Overall, I had three independent variables I was testing: The effects of vape with nicotine, vape without nicotine, and 40% nicotine sulfite. The vape with nicotine only had a starting concentration of 3%. This was a challenge because 3% and 40% are two very different numbers. Thanks to Dr. Purdy though, I was able to get the calculations I needed to make sure I wasn’t adding any more variables to the equation. I don’t know what I would have done without her. 

One of my favorite things about the TRIP experience so far is collaborating with mentors and peers. Not only are Dr. Leystra and Dr. Purdy some of the coolest, smartest people I have met, they bring such fun and motivating energy to the lab, leading me to take on new challenges and try new things. In addition, going through this journey with my fellow TRIP peers has made this experience even better. I love being surrounded with people as passionate as I am for science and it is nice to have occasional conversations about life while breaking between fly sorting. I truly enjoy this program so much and look forward to it every week. I am psyched to see what comes next for me and eager to see the results of my independent research project.
Signing off,
Erin Suter