Dunks & DNA: LR篮球明星在实验室里表现出色

As a 6-foot-1 starting center for the Lenoir-Rhyne University women's basketball team, 奥利维亚·纳恩被鼓励回击对方的射门.

However, as an honors biology student and participant in a nationwide project to collect and genetically barcode ant species for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory out of New York, 不鼓励拍打参与者.

纳恩说:“我被群居群体迷住了，所以我就一头扎进去了。. "I fell in love with it the first time I looked at an ant under the microscope.

“长大后，你看到一只蚂蚁，以为它只是一只蚂蚁. Now, at the age of 22, I'm looking at ants under a microscope trying to identify them. 世界上有2万种蚂蚁. 这是一个挑战. 我可以在我的余生中每天发现一种新的蚂蚁."

迎接挑战

莱克星顿人, North Carolina, 纳恩从来不是一个喜欢走捷径或随大流的人. 相反，她选择了冒险和人迹罕至的道路.

"I remember when she came in as a freshman in my biology class," said Scott Schaefer, Ph.D.劳氏大学生物学副教授. "It was the year we were doing all the crazy renovations in the science buildings and had classes in the library. You have certain students who ask questions about anything you lecture about, 奥利维亚就是其中之一. 全球网赌十大网站讨论的是有机分子和基本遗传学. 她总是那些感兴趣的学生之一. 她想讨论一下，了解更多."

未来的健康科学专业, Nunn, instead, 决定主修生物学，辅修化学. A tough curriculum for anyone, let alone an honors student and student-athlete.

"What she has been able to do in the classroom over the last four years and the major she's in, 她得花那么多时间在课堂上, labs and academic programs and be a Division II basketball player is pretty incredible,LR女子篮球教练格雷厄姆·史密斯说. "We're putting in eight hours a week during the preseason and 20 hours a week during the season. To be able to manage both loads the way she has and perform the way she has, 你不会看到很多学生运动员能够做到这一点."

作为大四学生和熊队的首发中锋, 纳恩作为防守封盖者和护框者为LR效力. 在赛季的中途, 她在全队篮板球榜上排名第二, 抢断和盖帽, 同时也作为第一. 4 scorer.

她每晚平均只花不到30分钟看电视, which, 当你增加练习时, weight training, 电影学习和自习室, 她的时间很宝贵.

"She definitely goes above and beyond between her time in the classroom and the time she puts in studying, 但同时, 她在履行她对全球网赌十大网站的职责," Smith said. “她把时间花在健身房，进行个人锻炼. 我认为这是她时间管理能力的真正证明."

纳恩已经被授予荣誉熊勋章, mentoring incoming freshmen and guiding tours of the campus for aspiring Bears when she was tabbed by Schaefer to work on the project for Cold Harbor.

"She was the first person who came to mind as an excellent team member because she's interested in entomology," he said. “然后全球网赌十大网站又增加了一个人, Brian Johnson, 谁是LR[1999]校友，在加斯顿尼亚高中任教."

The trio makes up one of 40 teams from across the country and four in the Southeast — but the only team in North Carolina — to take part in the study barcoding ants to create a nationwide database.

"Basically, we're trying to isolate species to try and identify them," Schaefer said. “全球网赌十大网站从这些特定物种中分离出DNA, 扩增特定的基因，并将其送到纽约的实验室. 然后，他们采集这些样本，对特定的基因CO1进行测序. 他们把它发回，全球网赌十大网站对它进行注释. We are basically trying to look for a large enough fragment to compare it against other databases at the National Center for Biotechnology. We give them the coordinates and see if it matches against any other species in the database."

奠基工作

纳恩为球队做了很多基础工作, baiting, 在停机期间对蚂蚁进行识别和分类. 她说，她平均每天在这个项目上工作大约一个小时.

“收集蚂蚁真的很棘手，”她说. “我钓到的鱼比我钓到的多得多, but there were times where I dropped the collection container and lost all the ants I'd gathered. I squished more ants than I planned on, so there were tricks I had to learn."

一种方法是冷冻标本, 这使得在显微镜下用镊子更容易操作它们.

“有几次我以为我轻轻地抓住了它们, 但我不小心把他们的头打掉了," she said. "It definitely made me work on my hand-eye coordination when working with something that is less than 3 millimeters."

纳恩说，她已经收集了700只蚂蚁，目标是找出400只. At the beginning, 她试着在树下设置诱饵和陷阱, however, 它变异成用一个吸引器一只接一只地捕捉蚂蚁. To date, 她没有发现任何新物种, however, 她确实遇到过一个, Tetramorium bicarinatum, 这是一种东南亚特有的植物.

通过她的工作给蚂蚁条形码, Nunn has also developed the framework for her senior honors research project that looks into the different distribution of ants on black walnut trees compared to red maples.

"This is preparing her for graduate school and a professional career," Schaefer said. “抓蚂蚁不是一项简单的工程. You have to bait them and then go into traditional identification using different types of dichotomous keys. 然后你必须使用显微镜. She's learning DNA isolation and a step higher where we're amplifying a specific gene. That means you have to understand how to run thermocyclers and what components go into a [polymerase chain reaction]."

2021年春季学期, Nunn is continuing her identification of ant species and helping instruct students in Schaefer's genetics lab. Students are participating in her research as Nunn shows them how she extracted DNA from various species and went about identifying them.

"This project has helped connect the dots of what I learned when I took genetics last year," she said. "I am excited to be a part of the ah-ha moment other students will experience with these upcoming labs."

Nunn is scheduled to present her research at the North Carolina Academy of Science and the Symposium On University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE) before defending her project in front of the biology faculty, which often leads to publication and a permanent spot for the research in the Lenoir-Rhyne University library for future generations of Bears to study.

She has already applied to several doctoral programs with the goal of attending Cornell, 或者范德比尔特大学继续她的昆虫学研究.

“这是一种没完没了的苦差事，但很有趣，”她说. “更令人鼓舞的是，我能做自己擅长的事情. 它教会了我平衡. 它挑战我走出自己的舒适区.

"I just have a desire to learn more and keep myself on my toes in a sense because in research, 你回答一个问题，就会引出另外10个问题. 它是对知识的不断追求，对你的批判性挑战."