As my roommate sits in the lab on a Monday morning she mixes chemicals to make nanoparticles, which sounds cool on its own. But, of course, she is not mixing nanoparticles purely for her own enjoyment. She is measuring and mixing in order to create nanoparticles that can be injected at the site of a cancerous tumor to treat cancer in a more efficient and, therefore, less physically taxing way. Following the injection, the patients receive a light treatment at the affected site. The light activates the chemicals so that they attack the cancer. This method of administering treatment not only sounds much cooler, it diminishes the widespread havoc that chemotherapy wreaks on a patient’s body. As the best friend of a cancer survivor, I understand that the hardest parts of undergoing treatments is dealing with the fact that traditional chemotherapy and radiation don’t just treat the spot where the cancer has made its home; in order to destroy the cancer, the treatment must often also take the patient’s hair and even their sense of self. So while these nanoparticles do not cure cancer at a higher rate than previous treatments, they do have the potential to lessen or eliminate the worst side effects of cancer. More importantly, the use of nanoparticles to deliver cancer treatment should rob cancer of its power to take over the individual who has the incredible misfortune of hosting cancer.
Of course, the ability to help cancer patients alone is enough reason to support this research, but I was interested in what else a nanoparticle like this could do. When I asked Sharon about other applications for these particles, she was quick to point out that they can be used in solar panels as a way of collecting more energy than traditional solar panels can. In her explanation of this application, she points out that solar panels currently only collect 3% of natural sunlight because they can only harness visible rays. Most natural sunlight is closer to the near infrared rays. If the particles in her lab were put on solar panels, we could see a tenfold increase the power that we harvest from sunlight.
After reading about Sharon’s work in the lab, you may picture her as a young professional with a degree in chemistry or bio-engineering from a prestigious school. And you’d be half right in your assumption. In fact, Sharon is a rising sophomore at Tufts University. She is on the pre-med track and is majoring in chemistry. She is a pole vaulter and ex-gymnast. She enjoys ice cream, her dog, and is a STEM girl. Although this may sound like a dating profile, I merely mean to help you realize that she is a person and not a perfect robot.
In fact, it was her work at Tufts that helped her get the ball rolling on this impressive work. “I got involved because I knew someone who worked in a medical school in Massachusetts, but his lab was full so he told me to email a bunch of professors. Luckily, Dr. Han got back to me and said he would love to have me if I was interested.” She goes on to stress the importance of reaching out to other professors she didn’t know and accepting a position she was unsure about.
Her decision to take the position was clearly a fantastic one for her, but in the spring as we were lining up internships, she was not so sure if she would find working in her professor’s lab to be fulfilling. Now she knows that her decision to take the opportunity instead of turning it down for coaching gymnastics full-time or finding another summer job was entirely the right one. So, by now, you may have come to the conclusion that Sharon is a flawless, badass STEM woman. While she is both a badass and a STEM woman, Sharon is quick to point out that her experience in this lab has helped her realize that it’s really okay to make mistakes as long as she admits that she has done so. Sharon notes that it hasn’t been easy to admit when she has messed up in the past, but in research you have to admit when you make a mistake. She adds, “We run tests which take an hour and sometimes I mess up the test at the beginning only to find out about my mistake an hour later. Fortunately, my co-workers make me feel like it’s okay to mess up.” Messing up, it seems, can lead to new discoveries, and at it’s core, a mistake reminds us that we are human and imperfect.
Although she hopes to be a doctor and not a researcher in her post-grad life, her research has taught her many things about herself. She now understands how her studies apply to medicine, and the importance of research is clearer than ever to her. Among the most important lessons she learned Sharon credits her work in research with illuminating how the things she learned in the classroom relate to the real world especially as a chemistry major where most of her classwork was theoretical. She points out that in classroom labs the instructors design the labs so that a predetermined result is guaranteed if done a certain way, while in research there is no predetermined guaranteed outcome which can be both frustrating and exhilarating. Sharon also emphasized that as an aspiring doctor she had not considered other paths, but it was eye-opening to have experience in another discipline that she may find herself in in the future. Due to Sharon’s work at UMass Amherst’s medical school she is able to see other research that is being conducted around her and get a glimpse into what research looks like at different stages.
Before Sharon has to go enjoy her weekend, she tells me that while her work is nowhere near being ready for use on humans, her work with her co-workers -- or as she jokingly calls them “the five real people and four fellow interns” -- has prepared her more for the years ahead than she thought possible. In fact, one coworker, a dual PhD and MD student, serves as an example that those interested in medicine do not have to forego a career in research; they can, in fact, appreciate the merits of research while practicing medicine.
At the end of the summer as we attempt to ready ourselves to go back to school, maybe we can take a page from Sharon by asking for what we want, doing the work to get it, and then appreciating the opportunities we are given even if they are not what we imagined at the onset. In the coming school year if you find yourself facing an opportunity that you hadn’t even considered before or are unsure of, take it because you never know where it might lead you.
