A Day in the Life of a Parasitology Undergrad Researcher

Have you ever wanted to do research but felt like you were too busy and wouldn’t have enough time to do so? Well, me too. However, even if you can only work in the lab, workshop, or field for a few hours a week, those hours are absolutely worth your time. As a sophomore with a major in biomedical science: medical microbiology, a minor in genetics, and a position on a club sports team, I am here to tell you to take advantage of whatever time you can squeeze in for research. Mondays are the only day during my week that I have this time, so here is a little insight into how I do it. 

5:30 a.m. Who doesn’t love a good 5:30 alarm to get up for soccer practice? Me, lol. However, while it may be hard to roll myself out of bed this early in the morning, I always feel so refreshed and accomplished after getting a few hours of structured exercise in before starting my day. 

6:00-8:00 a.m. Practice, practice, practice!!! As vice president of the women’s club soccer team here at UNH, I always do my best to set a good example and motivate everyone to do their best while also keeping practices entertaining but purposeful with the help of our amazing coaches.

8:10-9:00 a.m. One of my favorite parts of the day. . .breakfast! My roommate and I always make the trek to Philbrook dining hall in the mornings simply because they make the BEST breakfast sandwiches. A two-egg scramble with sausage, feta, tomatoes, mushrooms and onions on a toasted blueberry bagel is always my go-to. Good fuel = good work!

9:10-10:00 a.m. Principles of Cell Biology. This class has been so interesting to take this semester, and I love it because it is very closely related to my field of work. In cell bio we dive deep into intracellular signaling, cellular communication, and cell structures.

10:10-11:00 a.m. Principles of Genetics. This is one of my favorite classes and also really closely related to my research in the lab.  I like it so much that I ended up declaring a genetics minor this semester.

11:10-12:00 p.m. Organic Chemistry. Yup, that organic chemistry – the one everyone says they failed in college? It’s actually not that bad! The hardest part was learning how to study for the exams but once I figured that out, the class has turned into another favorite. 

12:00-4:00 p.m. My other favorite part of the day. . .lab! After eating a snack on my short trip from Spaulding Hall to Rudman Hall, I am ready to take on some research tasks for the day. Thanks to a summer 2025 grant from the Research Experience and Apprenticeship Program (REAP), I now work in the Jeffers Lab investigating transcriptional regulation in the Apicomplexan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii. REAP allowed me to connect with a faculty researcher and truly begin my journey towards working in research. Our main goal in this lab is to figure out how this parasite turns on and off its genes so we can work to find parasite specific drug targets that could hopefully lead to more effective and less harmful drug therapy options for patients with toxoplasmosis, the main disease caused by T.gondii. As an undergraduate student working in this lab during the academic year, I have been paired with a graduate student, Olivia Beauchamp, who I assist with her PhD work. My tasks today were as follows:

• Splitting Cells: In order to maintain our parasite lines after using them up for benchwork, we need to take existing host cells and make more so we can grow more parasites. This is done in our tissue culture lab where everything must be sterile so that we don’t contaminate our parasite lines with unwanted bacteria. Using just one 184 ml flask and some host media, we can grow more than ten new different flasks to introduce parasites into! In parasitology, that process is called transfection.
• Running a Restriction Digest: In order check our work, one thing we can do is run a restriction digest on a gel. This is where we cut the plasmid that we are engineering into one or two pieces using enzymes to then run that mixture on a gel electrophoresis to separate the DNA by size before imaging it. If the bands that show up on the gel are the correct sizes that correlate with our changes to the plasmid, then the experiment was a success! We can estimate the sizes these bands will be using a software called SnapGene that allows us to easily and virtually visualize and manipulate plasmids.
• Overseeing Flow Cytometry: This is one of Olivia’s projects that I am helping her out with. We are using a machine called a flow cytometer to collect data on an interesting phenotype characterized by too many nuclei per parasite in one of our experiments. I help by observing the flow cytometer as it is working and making sure the data looks correct before switching to the next sample. This is a relatively easy job which is nice because it allows me to work on some of my homework at the same time.
• Quantifying Plasmids: With the work that we do in this lab, we do a lot of DNA cloning. This means that we end up with a ton of plasmids that we have made to contain whatever certain type of DNA we are trying to create. Today, I took about thirty different plasmids that we cloned and ran them through a machine called a Nanodrop that quantifies how much DNA is in the plasmid we created and how pure this DNA is. This is a great way to check and see what plasmids we should move on with and which ones we can discard as we will use the plasmids that have the most and purest amounts of the correct genomic sequence.

4:00-5:00 p.m. After a long day I go back to my dorm. Normally, my roommates and I will have an early dinner, so I take this hour beforehand to unwind by laying down and reading a book while eating a snack.

5:00-6:00 p.m. Dinnertime!!

6:00-10:00 p.m. Now, as the day winds down, it’s time to make the room cozy and work on some homework. On today’s to-do list were my organic chem pre-lab and post-lab assignments, cell bio homework, and a genetics post-lecture quiz. 

10:00 p.m. Finally, it’s time to get into bed and go to sleep. Thanks so much for letting me take you through a day in my life! Goodnight.