Lindsey Jay is a postbaccalaureate IRTA in the lab of George Kunos, M.D., Ph.D., at the NIH’s National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). She graduated in June 2018 from the University of Chicago with degrees in Neuroscience and Biology. In Dr. Kunos’ lab, Lindsey assists with studies of a novel drug developed in the lab for the treatment of lung and skin fibrosis, a thickening and scarring of connective tissue that can occur spontaneously or due to injury. She hopes to pursue a career in pharmaceutical and drug development in the future. In her free time, Lindsey enjoys baking and painting.
What does a postbac actually do in the NIH IRP? Maybe you have an image of someone mixing colorful chemicals together like a mad scientist (which sometimes isn’t too far from the truth).
Although I am not creating any diabolical concoctions, I am kept quite busy running tests to examine whether our treatments reverse the effects of lung fibrosis, a thickening and scarring of lung tissue. Here’s what a typical week looks like for me.
“That machine? You’re gonna have to get up close and personal with it,” Josh, my fellow postbac, told me. I looked at this small metal contraption and nodded, trying to appear as if I understood, while thinking: he just means that people spend so much time sectioning organs on the microtome that it’s like spending an extended amount of time with a loved one, right?
Fast forward a few days, and I find myself breathing warm, moist air onto a paraffin-embedded mouse lung to soften the wax, just before I slice four-micrometer sections of mouse lung tissue that will later be stained and examined under a microscope. “He wasn’t kidding,” I muttered.
It was picture day, and I sat stiffly in front of a wrinkly blue curtain, nervously patting my hair into place. “You can smile, but just make sure no teeth are showing,” the person taking my picture told me. I laughed at that, and she also laughed, adding, “Everyone gets a good chuckle out of that one,” as she snapped my photo. A few days later, I picked up my photo, printed (not so) nicely with a vertical stripe running down my face. I didn’t even notice. I thought, this is real, as I proudly held up my official NIH ID badge.
This page was last updated on Thursday, January 20, 2022
