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| Jason Edman |
When Jason Edman begins his classes this fall at the
University of Wyoming, he will have an edge up on many of his peers.
Over the last six weeks, Jason has taken part
in intensive research in Dr. Grant Bowman’s lab in the Molecular Biology department, learning about the cell cycle and the specific function of a novel
bacterial protein.
Dr. Bowman explains, “Jason’s goal is to discover the
function of a novel protein. So far, it doesn’t look like anything that is in
the published literature.” In order to accomplish this, “His job is to take the
knockout strain, which means that it doesn’t produce any of this protein, and
ask if it is defective in cell division or different in any way compared to
normal cells.”
Jason is learning how cells grow and behave under different
conditions, and how these characteristics are related to underlying cell
structure. Jason and Dr. Bowman’s research is new and significant, and will
provide new insights for the molecular biology field.
“We’re trying to break new ground here,” Dr. Bowman says.
“Discovering new information about how bacteria grow and adapt to new
environments has important implications for a wide number of scientific and
medical fields.”
Jason has enjoyed his summer of research, and has learned a
lot in Dr. Bowman’s lab.
“I like doing lab work a lot,” he says. “It’s been fun
learning new things and meeting new people.”
SRAP is a six-week, intensive research program for high
school students. It is based at the University of Wyoming and is sponsored by
Wyoming EPSCoR. To learn more about the program, click here, or search “SRAP”
in the archives.
By Robin Rasmussen
Photo by Robert Waggener
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