Wooly Wonders
Undergraduate researcher and PREP awardee Andrew Hsu discusses his ‘sheepish beginnings’ with research
I did it for the sheep. Only at the beginning, of course.
While applying for the Pack Research Experience Program (PREP), I knew very little about what research was. My idea of research entailed working at a bench, micro pipetting liquid into a test tube. I didn’t know about the work leading up to playing mad scientist in the lab or the analysis required after it, but I applied anyway.
As I read through the available research projects, one immediately caught my eye: “The Genomic Basis of Sheep Wool.” Sheep! I didn’t even know I had such a strong infatuation for sheep until this moment. It must have been their cute little faces. I knew very little about them, but if I got to work with animals, then I was all in. Fortunately, I was able to get into the lab.
A constant thought ran through my mind during the initial weeks of working at the lab. ‘When will I be able to see the sheep?’ My wish would be granted later in the fall semester. In the meantime, I learned what research truly entailed.
I was mainly working with data by entering, organizing and analyzing results. I learned to use ChatGPT and ChatOCR to increase the speed I could enter data. I also learned to program in R – a programming language built for statistical computing and data visualization. While it wasn’t what I was expecting, I thoroughly enjoyed these tasks.
My mentor, Andrew Hess, Ph.D., was an important figure in ensuring that my research experience went smoothly. I was fresh out of high school and knew very little about the topic. Professor Hess would spend time with me and teach me the general concepts that were needed to succeed with my project. Anytime I was having problems with my code, he would steer me in the right direction and even personally help me with the code. The graduate students in the lab were welcoming as I made the transition into the lab. They helped me with code and invited me to work in the wet lab with them. One of the experiments that the lab was working on needed DNA to be extracted, as well as sheep wool. This finally led me to the sheep!
The day started early in the morning. The sheep were all still asleep, and we were getting ready for the long day ahead of us. Our task was to collect a tissue sample, wool sample, and fecal sample from each sheep…and there were more than 100 sheep!
First, we had to corral all of the sheep into a pen where we could take one or two sheep at a time for sampling. Once we had a sheep, a lab member – properly trained – held the sheep down for wool collection and tissue sampling. For the wool samples, we sheared a handful of wool from the midriff of the sheep; then we used a tissue sampling unit applicator to collect the sample from the sheep’s ear. The fecal sample is self-explanatory. That was the most uncomfortable part. I wasn’t allowed to perform any of the sampling. This was fine with me since all I wanted to do was look at the sheep, but I think it would have been fun to do some sampling. The day was over before I knew it, and I returned home tired and smelly.
Back in the wet lab, we began extracting DNA from the fecal samples. This involved putting everything into micro centrifugal tubes, grinding the contents and micro pipetting various solutions into the tubes, spinning them in a centrifuge to separate the precipitate from the supernatant, and repeating until we had the DNA we wanted. It was repetitive and tiring, but I was enjoying every second of it. We sent the test tubes to a company, and they sent the results for us to analyze. I used this data and the lambing records that I had worked on to complete my research project.
Overall, I loved my entire research experience. I learned so much about the animal breeding and science industries and I learned how to manage large amounts of data and lab skills. I would highly recommend other undergraduate students pursue research as a great way to build professional experience and skills in a low-stakes environment.
ÍƼöÐÓ°ÉÔ´´ the author
Andrew Hsu is an undergraduate researcher and Pack Research Experience Program (PREP) awardee at the ÍƼöÐÓ°ÉÔ´´. He is pursuing a dual degree in computer science and engineering through the College of Engineering, and mathematics with a specialization in statistics through the College of Science. He is a member of the Honors College.
