Brian survives his week in the desert.
Hi! My name is Brian Du, and I’m a sophomore from Texas. I’m a pre-med majoring in computer science. I like vacations, hiking, and hiking on vacation. Besides these hobbies, I also love learning about science and hearing a good story. These latter two are exactly why I’m excited to be writing for the Duke Research Blog.
My first exposure to science happened in third grade because my goldfish kept getting sick and dying. This made me sad and I became invested in making them well again. I would measure pH levels regularly with my dad and keep notes on the fishes’ health. Eventually the process turned into a science fair project. I remember I loved presenting because I got to point out to the judges the ‘after’ pictures of my fish, which showed them alive, healthy, and happy (I think? it’s hard to tell with fish).
One happy fish!
Source: Reddit
My fish and I go way back.
After that third-grade experiment, I kept doing science projects — almost year after year actually — since I love the research process. From framing the right questions and setting up the experiment, to running the trials and writing up and sharing my work, my enthusiasm grew with each step. Come competition day, I noticed that in interviews that went well, my excitement was contagious, so that judges grew more eager too as they listened. And so I understood: a huge part to science is communication. Science, like food or a good story, is meant to be shared with others. The scientist is a storyteller, adjusting his presentation to captivate different audiences. With judges, I spoke jargon, but during public exhibition, where I chatted with anyone who came up to me, I got creative when asked about my research. Analogies helped me link strange concepts to everyday objects and experiences. An important protein channel became a pipe, and its inhibitor molecule a rock which would clog the pipe to make it unusable.
protein channel “pipe”
edited from CThompson02
Now that I’m at Duke, there’s so many stories to tell of the rich variety of research being done right on campus! I’ve written a few articles for the Chronicle covering some of the new medicine or proteins Duke professors have been involved in developing. As I keep an ear out for more stories, I hope to share a few of them in my upcoming posts, because I know they’ll be exciting!