I’m really excited to complete my senior project for the Math and Science Academy. I’m doing a project on bacterial genetics, particularly how bacteria communicate with one another through exogenous DNA. Basically, bacteria have really small rings of DNA that they can transfer between one another. If you are taking an antibiotic then one bacteria might evolve through a random mutation to be resistant to that antibiotic. The bacteria actually have structures called pili on their cell wall that actually bond with another pili from another bacterium, and then the plasma transfers in between the cytoplasm of the bacteria. Then that bacteria has a resistance to that antibiotic in like a chain reaction. That is pretty bad for us because that means bacteria can be resistant to a whole bunch of drugs that we have developed. And so I’m doing research on how bacteria do their different types of transformation, which is this kind of communication that they do. I am researching ways that we can reduce the transformation frequencies so bacteria don’t transform as much if they’re in an oxygenated environment.
Virginia Wesleyan University is where I did a lot of my work this summer. Ms. Turner and Ms. Shoemaker are my chemistry teachers, and I’m a really big nerd so I hang out with them a lot.
What are you thinking about for college studies or a career?
I’m not entirely sure what I want to do in college, I’m thinking more chemistry, biochemistry. I want to do more research. I want to stay at college and do my own research.
#WeAreVBSchools
