As a part of the McNair Scholars program I'm supposed to be doing research this summer. I want to go to grad school for human genetics and so my research needs to be in this area.


I was wondering what kind of research someone at the undergraduate level would be able to do in this subject.

Any suggestions?

Hi Noodles,
Congratulations on your award! It sounds like a great program. I went and read the brochure for the McNair Program at the University of California Davis and it said that faculty would help you figure this out.

"Faculty mentors are on hand to help students formulate their research interests and develop their research skills."

http://www.mcnair.ucdavis.edu/PDF_files/McNairBrochureFeb2008.pdf

But I can understand why you might want to start thinking about it now.
There are so many interesting things to do in genetics now. It would be good to narrow this down if you can. Will you have a choice of faculty mentors when you start the program? Or will you be assigned to someone?

Also, what interests you?

Some schools have lab rotations, where you spend a little time in a series of labs so you can see what each one is doing. This is a great option.

Are there any faculty at the school you are at now who you trust and like? If there's anyone you admire, even if they aren't in genetics, I would make an appointment, even if you've never talked to them before.

I've talked to two faculty members who have stated that they have research interests in human genetics, but neither of them know if they're going to be around this summer to work with me.

I'd like to be able to actually work with certain chromosomes or genes rather than get down to the protein level.

Conditions/disorders I'm interested in..
Retinitis Pigmentosa
Essential Tremor

Or really, my teacher told me once that if it's not life-threatening then it doesn't get researched because you can't get funding, and since I get financial backing it'd be cool to do research in an area like eye color.

Will this just be for the summer, or will you be enrolling at the same school for graduate work and continuing on? I'm not clear how the program works--or if it's the same at all schools.

Also, can you talk about why you are interested in these diseases? Do they share a common biological problem? Is it more personal? Something else? Just to give me an idea what is interesting to you and why.

About life threatening diseases, your teacher is sort of right. Certainly, there's more funding for heart disease than for the common cold. But there is lots of funding for "orphan diseases," which are rare diseases. And if a disease interferes with a patient's ability to work and function or costs a lot of money to treat, it needn't be deadly to generate interest.

I've worked closely with someone who reviews grants, so I know a little bit about this.

I assume you've read about these two conditions. I don't personally know much about them. But I would recommend contacting researchers who already know about them and establishing a personal correspondence. If they are decent sorts, they are likely to want to give you advice.

The website WE MOVE has a section on essential tremor, so I'm guessing they can give you the names of researchers who would be knowledgeable and approachable.
Their website is:WE MOVE - Worldwide Education and Awareness for Movement Disorders (http://www.wemove.org/)
And their email contact is: [email protected]

Don't be afraid to write to researchers to ask reasonable questions. Most people like to talk about the thing they think about all day long to anyone who is interested.