And just like that, we are more than halfway through the program! This week was full of challenges and adventures. In just 5 days, we extracted DNA from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, visited Turkey Run State Park, and learned how to assembly and annotate a genome from scratch.
This week was particularly special for me, as my teammates and I had the opportunity to conduct an experiment we designed by ourselves. Following Dr. Gribskov’s lecture on mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance, I began to wonder if it would be possible for bacteria to develop resistance to an antibiotic different than the one to which they were originally exposed. This question led to an enriching discussion with my teammates, which ultimately culminated in the design of our own little experiment using very cool antibiotic strips! Although our results were not very interesting, the excitement of addressing a question with an unknown answer truly brought me closer to my teammates: I will never forget the exhilaration we all felt before looking at our plates to see if our experiment had actually worked.
Such a feeling of exhilaration has become an integral aspect of my experience at SSP—be it at ABE before learning that we have contamination, at the basement during our ping pong tournaments refereed by Sofia, or at Tsaocaa, where I tried boba tea for the first time today! Spoiler alert: it’s only good if you sip AND swallow. Here is a photo of me learning that chewing tapioca is not nice.
About Me:
Hola 🙂 My name is Andrés Muedano Sosa, and I am a rising senior from Mexico City. I am passionate about mathematics and biology, and am interested in pursuing a career in scientific research (I am weirdly obsessed with microglial cells and long noncoding RNAs). Outside the classroom, you can find me baking, reading, or randomly laughing for no reason whatsoever. Sleep deprivation might be the reason, actually. Thank you, PLAs! <3
