Undergraduate Biology Student Researcher: Emily Burt

Emily Burt  is a Junior, majoring in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and is minoring in Sociology.

Emily interned with Stowers Institute for Medical Research in the summer of 2021, where she generated DNA probes for human centomeric regions.

“It was an awesome experience; I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. I think for me, it was good to see what other kind of research is out there. So far, I’ve only worked with Dr. Lundquist, working with C. Elegans. So, for me every day has a lot of microscopes, but when I was there, I didn’t look in one microscope. It was nice to experience a different kind of research, and it opened up many research possibilities."

Emily's research at KU

Emily has been working with a doctoral student, Snehal Mahadik, in Dr. Lundquist’s lab. Together they have been observing how SRC-1 mediates UNC-6 signaling through its receptor UNC-5 in neuron development of C. elegans

"When C. elegans are developing neurons the growth cones are influenced by many factors, so there is a lot of signaling involved in getting the neuron to be wildtype/go straight up. We think SRC-1 mediates UNC-5 in the signaling. So we are seeing how SRC-1 does that.”

How did you first become interested in doing this kind of research?

“I always knew I wanted to go into research. That I didn’t want to teach or be a medical doctor. Freshman year, I didn’t even know what the lab did, I just asked for an interview with Dr. Lundquist. I got matched with the doctoral student Snehal Mahadik in November 2021 to help her finish her thesis. She has been teaching me so much along the way, and it has been fantastic to have her as a mentor.”

What does your research look line on a day-to-day basis?

“It’s a lot of looking in microscopes. Part of what I do is scoring Axon guidance, I have a test strain and I look at all the worms, I count how many defects there are and then we can see how the mutation we did affected the neuron development. I also complete a lot of genetic crosses to prepare more experiments. That involves looking at a plate under the microscope and looking for a specific phenotype. I also look for specific florescent markers, you pick one that has the phenotypes of the genotype that you want.”

Have you made any discoveries or findings? What is something interesting you've learned from the research?

"We haven’t made any definitive discoveries. We have observed that SRC-1 does have a role in mediating UNC-5 signaling, and that SRC-1 acts autonomous in nature.”

“I did a lab presentation in December and Snehal helped me put all the data into bar graphs, it was interesting to be able to visualize the data that way. When I’m scoring the axons, it’s not all in my head what the different strains mean, but then with the graphics I can see how all the defects line up. I think being able to examine it, and see the data and the results, was really interesting.

Its so fun completing an experiment, because a lot of the crosses don’t work, so when one does work, and you get your final product it feels so good that you actually have something.”

What did you find most challenging about your project? What advice would you offer to other students facing similar challenges? 

“For me, mainly making sure you find the time to keep going into the lab and doing it every day. It’s been hard for me to balance the time with classes and work. So, the hardest thing is making sure you have the time and consistently get into the lab.”

“Keep talking to your lab PI, if you’re struggling with time management. I had to do that with Dr. Lundquist and that’s when he paired me with Snehal. After I got more day-to-day interactions, and had someone who helped keep me accountable for coming in and I felt more pressure to come in regularly. When I was working just under Dr. Lundquist, I didn’t have that day-to-day interaction, so I didn’t have that accountability. So, I’d say, if you’re in a lab but having trouble finding time to come in, reach out to your lab director, and ask if they can help you with your time management.”

What do you plan to do after you graduate from KU?

“I hope to attend grad school and get a PhD. I don't know where I want to go, or what I want to study, but I'm interested in neurodegeneration, aging biology, cancer biology, and chromosome structure and functionality.

I’m hoping that this upcoming summer research program will help me narrow down what I want to do.”

"For anyone who thinks they may be interested in research, ask to meet with a P|, you don’t have to know exactly what they do, but just meet with them and see if it's for you. Do trial and error and see what you like."