"Have you participated in or conducted investigative research? If so, please describe your involvement in the project. If you have published or are listed as an author on a publication or manuscript in press, please provide the title, authors, and name of the journal. If not, please describe an instance where you solved a problem you had never faced before.
How do you envision incorporating research into your ideal career?"
There is no word limid but feel free to help me cut it down. I have this problem of being long-winded... All suggestions, corrections, critism are welcome!
SEE BELOW
From May 2005 to March 2006, I undertook an investigative research project as my Honors Year Project in the National University of Singapore. The aim of the project was to study the effects of Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S) on KATP channel activity in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion model. Hydrogen sulphide has been known as a toxic gas and an environmental pollutant for decades. However, in recent years there has been accumulating evidence to show that H2S is also an endogenously-generated biological gas exerting pronounced physiological effects, particularly in the central nervous system and the cardiovascular system. These findings place H2S well in the novel family of endogenous gaseous transmitters, termed "gasotransmitters", together with gases like nitric oxide (NO) and carbon monoxide (CO). What primarily interested me to undertake this project was the fact that these seemingly quite harmful gases can actually be produced by the human body and can exert important functions there - a fact that is hard to believe! Therefore, I chose to do this project to find out more about H2S and its physiological effects.
The results of my study demonstrated that the H2S donor, NaHS, exerts a marked protective action against injury during myocardial ischemia-reperfusion, in a way similar to the cardio protection induced by ischemic preconditioning (IP, single or multiple short periods of ischemia or hypoxia). The cardio protective effects of H2S was glibenclamide- (a non-selective KATP blocker) and 5-HD- (a selective mitoKATP blocker) sensitive, supporting the involvement of H2S -induced KATP channel opening in the cardio protective mechanism. In addition, HMR1098, a selective sarcKATP blocker, did not affect the cardio protective effects of H2S, indicating that the protective mechanism is via preferential opening of mitoKATP channel, but not sarcKATP channel.
I did the project largely on my own, under the supervision of my supervisor Dr Zhu and a research fellow. It was challenging experience but exciting and fulfilling. I had to learn a lot of things that I have never done before such as performing intraperitoneal injection on rats, preparing chemical solutions that I have never heard of before, learning to use numerous different machines, techniques and assays etc. One important thing that I learned while doing this project was how to face frustration positively and not give up easily. Being an undergraduate student without much experience in research, the initial learning phase was really overwhelming and sometimes frustrating. A big difference between course work and research is that in a classroom, there is always someone there to help you to clear your doubts; whereas in a lab, everyone has his own job to do and if you need help, you must learn to rely on yourself and find out the solution.
The instance where I solved a problem that I had never faced before is not a big discovery or a significant improvement. I don't think anyone in my lab would still remember it, but I remember it very clearly. When I was preparing the paraffin sections of the heart tissue to do my TUNEL assay, I had to use a microtome to cut my specimen into 5 ľm sections and then mount the sections onto glass slides. I spent many days practicing my cutting and mounting skills to make sure that I am competent enough to handle the actual specimens. However, I just could not get the sections properly flattened on the slides - and this is detrimental because it is important to be able to view all the cells clearly when doing the TUNEL assay. I consulted everyone I know who had done paraffin sections before, but all I got was just "practice more and be patient". When I returned to the small room, instead of start cutting again, I stared at the microtome and started thinking what other factors may have caused the problem. The microtome is not a complex piece of machine. There were others using it so I knew it is functioning well; I had changed the blade to a new one but it did not solve the problem. What else can it be? I looked around and finally stopped at the cooling device. The cooling device is used to harden the paraffin with the tissue within it so that it can be cut easily. Being a person who enjoys cooking, I suddenly recalled the difference between cutting fresh meat and frozen meat. "Maybe the specimen is not cold enough", I told myself and selected a lower temperature on the cooling device. To my joy, it worked and I could lay my sections perfectly flat on the slides! After confirming with my supervisor that this is not going to affect my results in any way, I prepared all my slides for TUNEL assay using this adjusted temperature to cool down the paraffin. This may be trivial, but I was glad that I could use my own knowledge, experience and thinking to overcome a problem in my research. It also taught me the importance of keeping an open mind and flexibility when dealing with pre-set parameters in experimental protocols.
Although I do not have much experience in independent research, my ideal career in medicine definitely cannot be separated from research. I believe that research is an intrinsic part of medicine and a good physician needs to be a good researcher as well. Most (if not all) the clinical practices come from extensive research, especially in today's society. Take pharmaceuticals as an example. Every potential pharmaceutical product must undergo years of research and development, including in vitro and in vivo testing in animals and humans before it can be approved to ensure its safety and efficacy on patients. Being a good physician, it is not only important for us to know what to use to fight a disease, but also to understand how it works and how it came about. Therefore, my aim as a doctor will be to make medical research into an integral part of my clinical practice, so as to improve the current practices while looking for better and potentially more effective ways out.
How do you envision incorporating research into your ideal career?"
There is no word limid but feel free to help me cut it down. I have this problem of being long-winded... All suggestions, corrections, critism are welcome!
SEE BELOW
From May 2005 to March 2006, I undertook an investigative research project as my Honors Year Project in the National University of Singapore. The aim of the project was to study the effects of Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S) on KATP channel activity in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion model. Hydrogen sulphide has been known as a toxic gas and an environmental pollutant for decades. However, in recent years there has been accumulating evidence to show that H2S is also an endogenously-generated biological gas exerting pronounced physiological effects, particularly in the central nervous system and the cardiovascular system. These findings place H2S well in the novel family of endogenous gaseous transmitters, termed "gasotransmitters", together with gases like nitric oxide (NO) and carbon monoxide (CO). What primarily interested me to undertake this project was the fact that these seemingly quite harmful gases can actually be produced by the human body and can exert important functions there - a fact that is hard to believe! Therefore, I chose to do this project to find out more about H2S and its physiological effects.
The results of my study demonstrated that the H2S donor, NaHS, exerts a marked protective action against injury during myocardial ischemia-reperfusion, in a way similar to the cardio protection induced by ischemic preconditioning (IP, single or multiple short periods of ischemia or hypoxia). The cardio protective effects of H2S was glibenclamide- (a non-selective KATP blocker) and 5-HD- (a selective mitoKATP blocker) sensitive, supporting the involvement of H2S -induced KATP channel opening in the cardio protective mechanism. In addition, HMR1098, a selective sarcKATP blocker, did not affect the cardio protective effects of H2S, indicating that the protective mechanism is via preferential opening of mitoKATP channel, but not sarcKATP channel.
I did the project largely on my own, under the supervision of my supervisor Dr Zhu and a research fellow. It was challenging experience but exciting and fulfilling. I had to learn a lot of things that I have never done before such as performing intraperitoneal injection on rats, preparing chemical solutions that I have never heard of before, learning to use numerous different machines, techniques and assays etc. One important thing that I learned while doing this project was how to face frustration positively and not give up easily. Being an undergraduate student without much experience in research, the initial learning phase was really overwhelming and sometimes frustrating. A big difference between course work and research is that in a classroom, there is always someone there to help you to clear your doubts; whereas in a lab, everyone has his own job to do and if you need help, you must learn to rely on yourself and find out the solution.
The instance where I solved a problem that I had never faced before is not a big discovery or a significant improvement. I don't think anyone in my lab would still remember it, but I remember it very clearly. When I was preparing the paraffin sections of the heart tissue to do my TUNEL assay, I had to use a microtome to cut my specimen into 5 ľm sections and then mount the sections onto glass slides. I spent many days practicing my cutting and mounting skills to make sure that I am competent enough to handle the actual specimens. However, I just could not get the sections properly flattened on the slides - and this is detrimental because it is important to be able to view all the cells clearly when doing the TUNEL assay. I consulted everyone I know who had done paraffin sections before, but all I got was just "practice more and be patient". When I returned to the small room, instead of start cutting again, I stared at the microtome and started thinking what other factors may have caused the problem. The microtome is not a complex piece of machine. There were others using it so I knew it is functioning well; I had changed the blade to a new one but it did not solve the problem. What else can it be? I looked around and finally stopped at the cooling device. The cooling device is used to harden the paraffin with the tissue within it so that it can be cut easily. Being a person who enjoys cooking, I suddenly recalled the difference between cutting fresh meat and frozen meat. "Maybe the specimen is not cold enough", I told myself and selected a lower temperature on the cooling device. To my joy, it worked and I could lay my sections perfectly flat on the slides! After confirming with my supervisor that this is not going to affect my results in any way, I prepared all my slides for TUNEL assay using this adjusted temperature to cool down the paraffin. This may be trivial, but I was glad that I could use my own knowledge, experience and thinking to overcome a problem in my research. It also taught me the importance of keeping an open mind and flexibility when dealing with pre-set parameters in experimental protocols.
Although I do not have much experience in independent research, my ideal career in medicine definitely cannot be separated from research. I believe that research is an intrinsic part of medicine and a good physician needs to be a good researcher as well. Most (if not all) the clinical practices come from extensive research, especially in today's society. Take pharmaceuticals as an example. Every potential pharmaceutical product must undergo years of research and development, including in vitro and in vivo testing in animals and humans before it can be approved to ensure its safety and efficacy on patients. Being a good physician, it is not only important for us to know what to use to fight a disease, but also to understand how it works and how it came about. Therefore, my aim as a doctor will be to make medical research into an integral part of my clinical practice, so as to improve the current practices while looking for better and potentially more effective ways out.
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