Research lab dilemma

[elephantfoot]

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Currently I am a freshman doing research at my state schools attached med school, but I feel like the opportunities for me to make any contribution are very little. I spent most of the year collecting data by, running QPCR's and doing some mouse takedowns and sectioning, but don't really get to do anything else. I ask questions about the research and try to have some discussion about it, but none of the mentors seem to want to really talk to me about the projects, they just ask me to collect data and I don't get to participate in any intellectual discussion. Lots of times, my mentors are not in the lab and when I ask what I should/can be doing they just say there's nothing to do and I end up sitting around in the lab for hours. Sometimes when I ask to try/watch new experiments, I am told they are too complicated and cant do them. Additionally, my PI doesn't really want to let me do anything like westerns or antibody staining because the antibodies cost money. I have asked about the possibility of taking on a independent project due to the amount of downtime I have just sitting around in the lab and my PI has said yes, but I'm kind of getting the runaround when I try to take it further. I have done wet lab research for private companies before but never in a university setting, so I am not sure if this is the norm for the undergrad experience in a academic lab. I am just not sure if I should continue to stay in this lab or try to find a different one.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Currently I am a freshman doing research at my state schools attached med school, but I feel like the opportunities for me to make any contribution are very little. I spent most of the year collecting data by, running QPCR's and doing some mouse takedowns and sectioning, but don't really get to do anything else. I ask questions about the research and try to have some discussion about it, but none of the mentors seem to want to really talk to me about the projects, they just ask me to collect data and I don't get to participate in any intellectual discussion. Lots of times, my mentors are not in the lab and when I ask what I should/can be doing they just say there's nothing to do and I end up sitting around in the lab for hours. Sometimes when I ask to try/watch new experiments, I am told they are too complicated and cant do them. Additionally, my PI doesn't really want to let me do anything like westerns or antibody staining because the antibodies cost money. I have asked about the possibility of taking on a independent project due to the amount of downtime I have just sitting around in the lab and my PI has said yes, but I'm kind of getting the runaround when I try to take it further. I have done wet lab research for private companies before but never in a university setting, so I am not sure if this is the norm for the undergrad experience in a academic lab. I am just not sure if I should continue to stay in this lab or try to find a different one.

I'm reminded of "wax on, wax off,"

If this is your first time ever in an academic research lab, you should focus on perfecting the techniques you are charged with learning. Focus on data collection, analysis, and presentation. If you don't get this down, you won't be able to hang in more substantive discussions. Your duties are based on your mastery of physiology to date, and you will get your chance with an independent project with a graduating thesis.

For now, you have to show you aren't wasting money by screwing up western blots and immunohistochemistry. Make the most beautiful tissue sections and stains that the lab has ever seen. Show us you can be trusted. Damn straight, you and other newbie freshmen cost the lab money, and in the world of extremely limited funding, it is the PI's right to manage their lab budgets. Labs in "industry" don't have the same financial pressures, but your project can change on a whim outside the supervisor's control.

Did you make it clear what techniques you mastered in the private company? Are the techniques and tools in this lab similar? Are you able to show your technical precision to your lab peers?

The most important thing you can do is to stay on the "right side" of your PI by showing your value and mastery in the lab. Don't get over your skis too much... you are a freshman, and you don't want to burn bridges too early.

For an imperfect analogy: I wouldn't want someone fresh out of bootcamp to fly an F-15.

 

[eigen]

No offense, but what do you think research is? Collecting data (running QPCRs and mouse takedowns and sectioning) IS research.

Again, no offense, but if you're a college freshman, do you have the background to engage in intellectual discussion?

I have done wet lab research for private companies before but never in a university setting

Legitimate question: you're at most 19 if you're a freshman. How much research experience could you reasonably have?

Sometimes when I ask to try/watch new experiments, I am told they are too complicated and cant do them. Additionally, my PI doesn't really want to let me do anything like westerns or antibody staining because the antibodies cost money.

Yes? That's absolutely true. Usually I wouldn't let a student do techniques like that until they'd been in the lab for a long time and showed me that they were patient, that they were willing to do the common work that is the backbone of research collection, and often not until they'd advanced enough in their coursework that they both knew the theory behind the complex techniques they wanted to use AND had done those techniques in a teaching lab.

 

[elephantfoot]

Yes? That's absolutely true. Usually I wouldn't let a student do techniques like that until they'd been in the lab for a long time and showed me that they were patient, that they were willing to do the common work that is the backbone of research collection, and often not until they'd advanced enough in their coursework that they both knew the theory behind the complex techniques they wanted to use AND had done those techniques in a teaching lab.

I see, I just wanted some confirmation that this is the normal undergrad research experience.

 

[eigen]

I see, I just wanted some confirmation that this is the normal undergrad research experience.

This is far beyond the normal undergrad research experience for a first year student.

 

[elephantfoot]

Did you make it clear what techniques you mastered in the private company? Are the techniques and tools in this lab similar? Are you able to show your technical precision to your lab peers?

Right now everything I do is the same in technique to what I did before in the private company(QPCR, rna extraction, etc.), the only new things I have learned were sectioning and some cell culture stuff. I'm required to present data every week and my PI says everything looks good(Good QPCR replicates, clean sections(not allowed to do stains yet due to cost), etc).

 

[Goro]

I see, I just wanted some confirmation that this is the normal undergrad research experience.

Have you learned about testing a hypothesis?

If yes, you've done research

 

[polymerization]

I'm going to take a hard left from the advice offered, fair warning.

I can agree and understand that, as a freshman, you generally do not yet have the wherewithal to be able to participate in these elaborate doctoral-level discussions in the lab. However, that comparison is not entirely fair.

Your PI went to graduate school to study their little hyperspecific slice of science, and all of their grad students are building their careers on that same tiny slice. That slice may be covered reasonably well by a basic science curriculum, but it may not be. It is probably more likely not to be.

The reason why it matters is because the same reasoning can be used to exclude you from any conversations/experiments in the lab, basically in perpetuity. It is unreasonable for a PI to ever expect you to go toe-to-toe with one of their PhD students, and they know that. I worry that you're wasting your time, and I think if you plan to continue moving forward in this lab, you need to ask pretty direct, uncomfortable questions of the PI. I think you have to sit down and agree on milestones.

Why? You are not rewarded for doing endless grunt work in medical school admissions. If you have crazy mega hours from freshman year and you never get to publish or present anything, you're going to get looked at sideways in admissions. If your PI is dismissive now, what do you think your LOR is going to look like later on?

To be fair and more balanced, I think you're doing a lot for a freshman. Most students are just doing chores: washing dishes, autoclaving stuff, performing inventory, helping to proofread manuscripts for grammar. So it's not totally hopeless: the PI is clearly allowing you to actually participate in the scientific process.

I sound the alarm primarily to wake you up to the fact that closed mouths don't get fed. If you do not know what to ask for, and you don't take the initiative to learn and ask, you can very well spend 3 or more years working tirelessly under a PI that "had no idea" you were working toward a specific goal they "never imagined" you would need for your application. On their end, they were satisfied to have the extra set of hands that cost them nothing and that ask nothing of them.

Keep your eyes open.