Natalie Rawlings, a junior at The University of Arizona, discusses her research in molecular biology, focusing on the TORC1 pathway in yeast cells. She aims to make scientific papers more accessible to undergraduates through a journal club.
Here’s what she has to say:
Hello! My name is Natalie Rawlings, and I am a rising junior at the University of Arizona pursuing a B.S. in
Molecular and Cellular Biology and a B.A. in Biochemistry. I’ve spent almost two years now in a Molecular
Biology research lab, where I’ve been studying the nuanced regulation of a metabolic pathway that is
present in all eukaryotic cells, including our own! Specifically, I am studying the relationship between two
regulatory proteins that can turn this metabolic pathway off and on – like a light switch – in stress and
starvation conditions. Some of the techniques I use to understand this pathway include fluorescence
microscopy, where I track and quantify fluorescently tagged proteins in cells, and western blotting, a
standard molecular biology technique that detects protein activity levels over time. Outside of my
fascinating experiments, I enjoy rock climbing, hiking (especially the Grand Canyon), and tackling my
ever-expanding list of to-be-read books! Following graduation, I plan to pursue an MD/PhD, with which I
aim to spend my career at the interface of science and medicine.
Transcript: 0:01: From KXCI Tucson, this is Research Matters.
0:03: We talk with academic researchers from our region.
0:07: My name is Bridgitte Thum, and I am very pleased to welcome a rising junior studying molecular and cellular biology as well as biochemistry at the University of Arizona.
0:19: Please welcome Natalie Rawlings.
0:21: Hi.
0:22: So Natalie, what do you do at the UA?
0:24: I do a ton of things.
0:26: I’m in the Capaldi Lab, which is a molecular biology lab.
0:30: I’m involved in a lot of different clubs.
0:33: I’m actually starting up a new club.
0:35: It’s called the Undergraduate Journal Club.
0:37: What’s the Journal Club?
0:39: It’s about making scientific papers accessible for undergrads.
0:44: Anything from foundational papers that have Nobel Prize awards could be recent papers that are super.
0:51: Exciting.
0:51: An interesting idea that I want to do is go over some research faculty at the U of A’s papers, then reach out to the faculty members and have them talk about the research, and then we can have an awesome discussion.
1:03: Building community and understanding and kind of promoting a culture of awareness of each other’s work.
1:09: Absolutely.
1:09: What do you do in the lab?
1:11: In the past year, I’ve shifted to my own independent project, mainly focused on fluorescent.
1:16: Microscopy and Western blots.
1:19: Western blotting is a foundational technique of molecular biology to look at proteins, specifically to look at their activity.
1:27: And for a really long time now I have been doing fluorescence microscopy, which is something that I think will be more up and coming in the future.
1:35: It’s meant to corroborate with the Western blot technique.
1:40: What exactly are you studying with these techniques?
1:44: I work with yeast cells.
1:45: What I do with yeast can potentially be transferred to humans.
1:51: Specifically, what I study in yeast is this pathway called torque 1 target of rapamycin 1.
1:58: It kind of does everything for the cell in terms of metabolism.
2:01: So it’s kind of like a supervisor.
2:03: Yeah, exactly, almost like the brain.
2:07: My grad student Jeho once told me this funny analogy.
2:12: He was like, Everything that we know about torque one is just one eyelash of the whole human body, like for a sense of scale.
2:20: We could know one eyelash, that’s all we know, but there’s so much more.
2:24: Right now my research is focusing on two proteins that are upstream of.
2:29: Main pathway.
2:30: All right, so what are these proteins called?
2:32: One is called AIT1, and that’s actually a protein that my lab took part in discovering.
2:38: And then the second one is NPR 2.
2:42: I’m trying to uncover the relationship between those two.
2:45: They somehow work to turn torque one on and off depending on what condition you’re in, like stress or starvation.
2:52: And there’s some sort of interaction there that might be really, really important, and that’s exactly what I’m researching.
2:59: What an amazing inner world we have with biology, you can almost like infinitely zoom in.
3:05: And just like look at the almost like raw chemistry of it all.
3:09: You’re literally watching the biology unfold like right before your eyes.
3:13: It’s a whole full circle moment for me and that’s honestly why I love it.
3:17: You’ve been listening to Research Matters.
3:19: Our guest today has been Natalie Rawlings from the University of Arizona.
3:24: Thank you so much for taking the time out of your super busy, beautiful life.
3:28: Thank you.
3:29: It’s been an honor to be here and I’ve been really excited.
3:33: Research Matters is produced in Tucson, Arizona at KXCI Community Radio, which is a listener supported radio station.
3:41: To hear more episodes, visit KXCI.ORG
