Brittany Brems sits down with Adelaide Cagle, the URC Communications Assistant to
discuss her summer research in antinflammatory drug development.
Adelaide
|
What did you do over the summer? |
| I worked in Dr. Tumey’s lab in the pharmacy building over the summer and we synthesize
and test antibody drug conjugates. In antibody drug conjugates, a drug is attached
to an antibody and will bind only to the specific cell type that you want so then
there aren’t off-target effects and side effects that you can get from drugs targeting
the wrong cells. |
Brittany
|
Adelaide
|
What do you do in your spare time? |
| I live on Long Island, so I go to the beach a lot, and read on the beach. Up here,
I like to crochet, like turn on a movie and crochet and hang out with my friends.
Sometimes paint - do different artistic activities even though I’m not that good at
them. I’ve [also] done ballet and various types of dance my whole life! I was in the
nutcracker multiple times and I even took a few ballet classes in college! |
Brittany
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Adelaide
|
What was the biggest challenge you faced this summer?
|
| Mostly what I did was organic chemistry like making the drugs, not as much testing
the drugs - even though I did a little bit of that - but I had to optimize the conditions
of a reaction so it started out at about 30% and then I got it up to 100%. But there
were always little problems like, “this lowered it,” then I would combine the ones
that work and then sometimes it would still be low. We would do it on different antibodies,
and it wouldn’t work at all, like “If it works for this one it’s supposed to work
for this one, it’s the same exact thing, just from a different location!" |
Brittany
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Adelaide
|
What got you interested in research?
|
So I always really liked science in general and mostly when you like science as a
kid, they tell you “Be a doctor!” But I’d rather be doing something else with science.
I always enjoyed lab classes in high school and in college, so that’s why I was interested
in research - and I like biology and chemistry, and drug development combines those
two.
|
Brittany
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Adelaide
|
What was the best part of the summer? |
| “Honestly when I did the optimization and then I made a graph of everything and I
just saw it increasing every time I did it, it was so satisfying to look at it and
be like I actually did something and it worked!” |
Brittany
|
Adelaide
|
So where are you taking it from here? |
| “So I’m still in the lab now, and so I’m doing other work and I’ll be in the lab until
my senior year. My project for the summer, I finished, but I’m still doing other things related
to antibody drug conjugates.” |
Brittany
|
I was in FRI program and I wasn’t in like the biochemistry one, I was in the biogeochemistry
one, so it wasn’t exactly my field, but just doing all the lab work for that reassured
me that I do like being in the lab
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