A Day in the Life

Hi! My name is Lucia Mulei and I am a first-year at UNC from Boston, Massachusetts. I am on the pre-med track and was recently accepted into the BSPH Biostatistics program at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. When I was in high school, I always wanted to do research, but wasn’t sure where to start. Instead, I focused on clinical experiences like volunteering at a local hospital and at blood drives with the Red Cross. 

When I arrived at UNC, I looked for research opportunities through the work study program, which I qualified for through my financial aid package. I currently work as a laboratory assistant at the Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Ecology Lab (IDEEL) within UNC’s School of Medicine. I chose this lab because I am considering pursuing infectious disease as my medical specialty (even though there’s a long way to go before I get there!). I also loved my PI when I interviewed with her, which definitely made my decision to join IDEEL easier. Come along with me for a lab day to see what it’s like! 

6:30 AM: Wake Up

Every Tuesday/Thursday, I have early classes and go to my lab in the afternoon. It makes for a long day, but this schedule allows me to keep my M/W/F pretty clear to catch up on work and reset. I always need to eat breakfast before 8 AMs, so I meet my friend at Lenoir around 7. 

8:00 AM: First Class 

My first class is my Triple-I, one of the required first-year classes here at UNC. I’m taking IDST 111: Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy. I really like it so far (besides the early start time)! I’ve never taken an Econ class before, so it’s nice to get some basic knowledge of the subject. This class gets out at 9:15 AM, which gives me about 15 minutes to speed walk from Genome to Hamilton. 

9:30 AM: Second Class 

My next class of the day is COMP 110: Intro to Programming, which is required as one of the Biostats prerequisites. I’m taking it in a special section for only first-year students taught by Kris Jordan, who is an awesome professor! I was definitely nervous about taking my first CS class, but it’s actually pretty manageable and teaches you some really valuable skills. 

11:00 AM: Last Class

My third and final class of the day is MATH 381H: Discrete Mathematics, which is another required course for Biostats. This one is definitely challenging and forces you to think about math in a different way. I’m taking 381 with a smaller class size, which provides more time to ask questions and to work through practice problems– I would recommend this if possible!

12:30 PM: Lunch!!! 

Discrete ends at 12:15 PM, so on Tuesdays I head straight to Lenoir to meet friends for lunch. On Thursdays, though, IDEEL has a weekly lab meeting, so I walk from Phillips to the Mary Ellen Jones building on the Medical School Campus. I usually pack a bagel for lunch to eat before the meeting starts at 1:00 PM. 

Most labs will hold a lab meeting each week. It’s a great time to update the group on any papers that have been recently published or grants that have been awarded to members of the lab. In my lab, someone from IDEEL or a guest speaker typically spends the hour presenting on their research in order to practice for an upcoming talk and get feedback from the group. I love going to lab meetings because I can learn about different research questions being explored at IDEEL and about the science behind various infectious diseases. 

1:00 pm: Lab Meeting/Lab

On Tuesdays, I’m at the lab from 1:00-5:00 PM, and on Thursdays, I head to the lab after our lab meeting until 5:00 PM. The only other day I go to the lab is Fridays; since I don’t have any classes on that day, I’m there from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. 

My PI, Dr. Jessica Lin, works primarily on malaria research, and specifically studies the transmission of asymptomatic malaria and recurrent infections and relapses. I’m currently helping Dr. Lin and a Biostatistics post-grad to fill in some gaps in analysis of blood samples collected from subjects at our collection site in Tanzania. The goal is to track repeat infections by completing a heat map that shows when all the subjects in the study tested positive for malaria (and for which species) over the course of the study. The two species of malaria that I work with most frequently are Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium ovale. 

We receive blood samples from Tanzania in the form of dried blood spots (DBS), which have to be physically punched out to later extract the parasite DNA (if it exists) from the blood sample. After doing this, we can perform quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction, or qPCR, to amplify a specific portion of the DNA and see if the sample contains parasite DNA. I’m wrapping up this project, so recently I’ve been analyzing my results from my various qPCR runs and compiling a clear report of my work. 

5:30 PM: Dinner & Homework

After lab, I head back to Lenoir for dinner with a couple friends. After dinner, I’ll usually go to the library to get some homework done, but only the work that doesn’t require too much brain power after a long day! I try to get to bed early, by 10:30 PM if possible. 

And that’s the day! Thanks for following along with me! If you have any questions about research at UNC, the work study program, or finding your own lab, feel free to reach out to me at lucia.mulei@unc.edu.