Alicia McElwee

Experience

• 

  The College of Wooster

  May 2019 - May 2020

  Sophomore Research Assistant

  The lab studies bioremediation, focusing on bacterial degradation pathways of environmental contaminants. Over the summer of 2019, I learned how to produce a protein of interest utilizing recombinant DNA technology and purification techniques such as His Trap and Gel Filtration. I gained confidence in basic lab techniques such as growing cultures, making buffers, and coordinating with others in the lab. Through the problems we encountered, I learned how to search the literature for possible causes and solutions, extrapolating that knowledge into hypotheses testable in our lab. More recently, I used BLAST, PCR, and Gibson Assembly to create a cosmid containing all the genes in the degradation pathway of interest, with a look towards testing how degradation efficiency with transformed pathways changes depending on the genetic origin of the pathway and if such transformation affects the bacteria’s natural interactions with the environmentaround it. Show less

• 

  Boyce Thompson Institute

  May 2021 - Aug 2021

  Research Intern

  I interned in Dr. Maria Harrison’s lab examining how environmental factors such as nitrogen levels and fungal species impact Brachypodium distachyon root phosphorus uptake through arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis (AMS). The work included sterilizing, vernalizing, and germinating seeds, extracting fungal spores, inoculating AMS cultures, and caring for plant cultures. I utilized fluorescence microscopy with a transgenetic FRET-based sensor to measure changes in cytosolic phosphorus levels in B. distachyon root cells, being responsible not only for data collection but also for processing the images and drawing conclusions. Additionally, I used dCAPS PCR to check for the presence of SNP mutations in phosphorus transport related genes in the various transgenetic B. distachyon lines. As part of the internship I also completed a bioinformatics course in transcriptomic analysis utilizing HISAT2 and edgeR. Show less