TrUE Scholars
Frogs are sensational creatures! When I started my research journey, I would have never thought that frogs would soon become one of my favorite animals. Frogs have fascinating anatomy with many parallels to that of human anatomy. The optic tectum in frogs is equivalent to the superior colliculus in humans. The research I specifically do involves testing how Cortocopin releasing factors (CRF) affect the lateral line feeding behaviors in the Xenopus Laevis (South African Clawed Frog). Since researching, I have faced many challenges that have helped me develop useful scientific and problem-solving skills. I learned when things do not go as planned, it's okay. We need to adapt and adjust our techniques as scientists. One of the challenges I faced when I first started my research was to determine how to elicit a consistent feeding behavior by only stimulating the lateral line process in frogs. This means that whatever I came up with could not elicit any sense other than touch. When brainstorming with my mentor, Dr. Harris, I saw a serological pipet. I thought air puffs would not smell, and if there were a divider, the frogs would not be able to see the pipette. This was the basis for our initial ideas of eliciting a consistent behavioral response in the frogs only to a lateral line cue, the puffing of air onto the water to make waves. Throughout my research, being thorough and organized is a skill that has served me well. I did not realize just how useful it is to have everything organized and systematically updated when working on a research project. The amount of time I have saved simply by naming a file name descriptively and with the date is astonishing. You only realize how important dates are in research once you have hundreds of files with the same description, and one of the only differentiating things is the date. Overall, research and the TrUE program are amazing experiences that have taught me more than what I could learn in just a classroom. The subtle, intangible skills that come with research are all crucial, such as communication, organization, and persistence. I look forward to sharing more of my experiences in research, and I hope to show you that frogs are amazing animals.