Tracy L. Prichett: Molecular and Cellular Biology

How did you choose your graduate field?

Biology is a board field that seeks to understand the many mysteries of life. I choose the gradate field to explore those mysteries through research. I hope to gain a greater understand of how the cells in the human body and how those inner workers and potential lead to disease. How did you get started with your research and mentor? When I was searching for a graduate program my current lab was of great interest to me and was a large part of my decision to come to Boston University. Like most Universities I was required to do three rotations in labs that were of interest to me. During the rotations in my current lab I felt comfortable in with the other members of the lab, the model system the lab was using was very interesting to me and my mentor was very enthusiastic about ideas I had about the work I wanted to do.

What is the greater significance of your research - how does it contribute to your field and to the world at large?

We are using the model system Drosophila melanogaster (Drosophila) to study the process of cell death. During Drosophila oogenesis developmental programmed cell death is essential to the development of a mature oocyte, thus this system is an appropriate model for studying cell death. Currently I plan to examine various signaling pathways and their involvement in this cell death model system. By studying these pathways I can gain a greater understanding of how cellular processes are regulated through signal transduction and how it can potentially regulate PCD. To the world at large cell death plays and very important role not only developmentally but in the progression of many diseases such as cancer. These studies can be applied to future work in cancer research as to how cellular cascades can be altered thus leading cells to becoming cancerous.

What has been the most challenging part of graduate school?

The largest challenging I have found is finding my scientific voice. During graduate school one learns how to be a scientist. He or she learns how to think through problems, design experiments to solve those problems and analyze the data that comes from those experiments. As I continue in gradate school I’m working towards being able to complete those three things and find my scientific voice or layout the goals I wish to complete as a scientist.