Los Angeles, California, United States
PROGRAM: Biological Sciences

In June 2019, I, along with my lab mates, attended the 22nd International C. elegans Conference held at UCLA in Los Angeles. It was an amazing experience and opportunity for my graduate research career. At the conference I was able to interact with C. elegans researchers from all over the world and learn about the latest research in a variety of different fields such as development, cellular biology, and metabolism. While my research is not in these fields, being able to listen to talks and poster presentations allowed me to come up with ideas for new experiments. My research is about understanding diet and its effects on Alzheimer’s Disease, and there were many talks and posters that explored the different aspects of Alzheimer’s Disease and using C. elegans as a model. I presented a poster entitled “Effects of Different Bacterial Diets on Amyloid-Beta (Aβ) Induced paralysis in a C. elegans Alzheimer’s Disease Model” to other fellow graduate students and senior scientists in the field. I received a lot of feedback and ideas for potential experiments, which made me excited to come back to UD and back to work. Presenting a poster at this international conference also allowed me practice presenting research to groups of people with different backgrounds and knowledge. Thanks to the Professional Development Award for support and for helping me attend the 22nd International C. elegans Conference. This opportunity not only allowed me to continue to work on my professional development, but also to network with fellow researchers from around the world. I also had a really good time exploring the UCLA campus as well as Los Angeles, but I will not miss the legendary Los Angeles traffic!