Louisa Hughes

After earning an honorable mention at ASM (the American Society for Microbiology) for my work in genomic annotation of a bacteriophage and presenting at Sigma Xi for undergrads, I was enthused to have the good news continue - and to join another society (having already joined the National Society for Leadership and Success in the Spring of 2013). I have volunteered via the Biology and Health Sciences club of Del Mar College (remained an officer of this club for two semesters), and have tried to remain active in on-campus activities while obtaining my degree.
Highlights of my work include:
1. isolating and purifying my own novel, lytic bacteriophage named AnasLacus (Latin for Duck Pond, where it was discovered). This phage was unfortunately unable to be sequenced. http://phagesdb.org/phages/AnasLacus/
2. being published for bioinformatic annotation of a novel, viral (bacteriophage) genome named Pier (for where it was discovered) using DNAMaster (favoring Glimmer over Genemark but only keeping BLASTs of q1:s1), HHPred (only noting down functions above 80% as putative), and Phamerator to compare Pier's genome against other C- and C1-clustered phages.
3. winning at ASM (the American Society for Microbiology) for annotation work with phage and presenting said work at Sigma Xi's undergraduate symposium for science students. http://www.bio-link.org/home/blog/sandra-porter/del-mar-college-biotech-students-win-asm
4. culturing cell lines and transforming A. thaliana
5. PCR, Recombinant Protein Expression, Western Blotting (as well as Northern and Southern blots), ELISA, SDS/PAGE,TEM and SEM work, other microscopy, very experienced with Vortexes and centrifuges.
6. absolutely love being in lab; sometimes stay in and wait rather than going out for a break when things are going to take 10-30 minutes to set or incubate before I can continue working. I usually either keep up my lab notebook, start making solutions needed around the lab (such as diluted bleach or saline solutions), wipe down my workbench, or read ahead in the procedure/prepare accordingly during this time.