Hello! My name is Tiffany and I am a junior executive for VP events for SIMS. After finishing my first year taking Biological Sciences it really has hit me hard that my summers will no longer look as care-free and filled with sleepover marathons and excessive amounts of ice cream like they did in high school anymore, as the grind does not stop even when the second semester ends!
Throughout my first year, I quickly realized how competitive the faculty of Science really is and the importance of gaining lab experience outside of regular coursework. I needed to compete! So in November 2019 with this newfound information, I put together my very first CV (essentially an academic resume) and began my great pursuit of reaching out to several esteemed professors at the University of Calgary by scouring the Faculty of Science staff directory and seeking out any and all opportunities within my reach.
After several of my emails being ignored and opening many kind rejection letters, I was lucky enough to finally gain the opportunity to meet with a professor in January 2020 who was willing to let me gain lab experience under her expertise.
Initially, I was already grateful enough to simply volunteer with the professor throughout the summer due to being unable to gain research funding from the first round of PURE research awards at the beginning of the year. However, I did not give up and applied to a different grant, titled the Mitacs Research Training Award that is offered to students of member universities across the nation. To my surprise, I received the award and will be working on this project for the next 16 weeks until December!
Upon meeting the professor, I learnt in her lab as the principal investigator, she conducts research in the field of biochemistry and molecular biology and takes a special interest in endocrinology as the primary goal of her research to gain knowledge valuable for creating novel new treatments for diabetes. As an intern, I will be continuing to build upon her previous research which has been focused on using pregnancy as a model for gaining a greater understanding of the molecular mechanisms that govern the mass and function of insulin-secreting beta-cells found within one’s pancreas.
At first, I had no idea what this scientific jargon meant, but after reading numerous scientific papers, I can now break it down into more understandable language. First of all, I learnt that the pancreas is an organ composed of both the endocrine and exocrine systems. My topic of study pertains to the endocrine portion of the organ called the Islets of Langerhans and more specifically to the beta-cells within these islets that are responsible for synthesizing and secreting the hormone, insulin, into your bloodstream and in normal function prevents one’s blood sugar from spiking dramatically after having a meal. Thus, those lacking efficiently functioning beta-cells that do not properly secrete insulin will likely suffer from high blood sugar and become diagnosed with diabetes and would require insulin injections to regulate these high levels of blood sugar. Some women in the state of pregnancy become diagnosed with a temporary condition called gestational diabetes, which proposes a good model to explore how these beta-cells function and are regulated within the body, or in vivo, and shows great promise in revealing different therapies that would work to regenerate well-functioning beta-cells in diabetes patients that lack them.
Beta-cells have been a topic of research for over a decade now if not two decades, and so from previous studies, it has come to be understood that beta-cells are regulated by the prolactin receptor (often denoted as Prlr) which are found in many cells throughout the body and are acted on by the Prolactin (PRL) and Placental Lactogen (PL’s) hormones. As previous research has discovered that direct prolactin action on beta-cells regulates its cell replication and insulin production within the body, my project seeks to further understand these interactions and relationships and therefore aims to explore whether prolactin action on non-beta cells has a secondary effect that acts upon beta cells.
For now, I will leave everyone with a lovely cliffhanger on this research project, and in about 4 months’ time, I hope to have filled my brain with enough knowledge to make it a bit heavier and be able to rejoice with the results of my blood, sweat, and tears I will be putting into this research opportunity. Saying I am grateful for this experience would be an understatement.
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