Randolph-Macon College issued the following announcement on Dec. 7
When Elise Knobloch ’21 graduated in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than a year had passed since she last entered a research laboratory. That lapse came after a busy research period during which she’d served as an undergraduate researcher and co-authored a paper on two new species of fishes in Central Africa with Visiting Professor of Biology Ray Schmidt. Still, despite a strong record of undergraduate research, the idea of jumping into graduate-level lab work after a year-long hiatus felt daunting.
Knobloch spent her first summer out of college apartment-hunting in North Carolina, where she was preparing to attend medical school. She had already lined up a few job interviews there when Dr. Schmidt reached out with a job offer she couldn’t refuse: a tailor-made, full-time research assistant role in her alma mater’s biology lab. He pitched the position as an opportunity for Elise to reacquaint herself with lab work before graduate school, and floated the possibility of overseas travel to boot.
“My plans changed pretty quickly after that conversation,” she laughed.
Making Up for Lost Time
Knobloch is one of two alumni hired to full-time positions in R-MC’s Biology Department this year thanks to a special grant through the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Research Experience for Post-Baccalaureate Students (REPS) awards are supplemental funds to active NSF grants that support the research training of post-baccalaureate students.
“The REPS funds are designed to make up for the fact that students who graduated from college during the pandemic likely missed out on much of the same hands-on research that graduates in previous years received,” Dr. Schmidt said.
The supplemental REPS funds are unique in that they aren’t required to directly support the original NSF grants, meaning Schmidt was free to craft a lab position tailored specifically to Knobloch’s current interests and future goals.
“Usually these grants are project-based, but the REPS funds are focused on the participant,” Dr. Schmidt explained. “We had an opportunity to write the proposal with a specific recipient in mind and support graduates like Elise whose research aspirations were curtailed by the pandemic."
Laying the Groundwork for Future Research
Knobloch, who has always been fascinated by genetics, spends her days in the lab developing and optimizing protocols for genetic research on freshwater insects. Her work involves finding ways to extract DNA from insects in a way that prevents the specimen’s destruction. She says it’s especially important to preserve specimens when working with rare insects or those owned by other institutions like the Smithsonian, where Dr. Schmidt has deposited insects he collected on a previous trip to Kenya. The hope is that Elise will refine the extraction process to the point that she can extract DNA from the Smithsonian samples, then travel to Kenya with Dr. Schmidt to teach her method to collaborators there.
“The extraction and sequencing process is time-consuming and expensive,” Dr. Schmidt explained. “The current process costs something like $10 per insect, and each one takes hours. Elise’s method hasn’t really been applied this way before, but we expect it to be able to process around 100 insects in the same amount of time for just pennies."
Right now Knobloch is honing her extraction technique on aquatic bugs, spiders, minnows, and crawfish collected from the pond at DeJarnette Park, just off R-MC’s campus. While each day comes with its advances and setbacks, Schmidt and Knobloch are confident they will be ready to share their system with Kenyan collaborators this summer.
“Elise’s research is laying the groundwork for producing thousands of sequences over the next few years at modest expense. Our understanding of insects and freshwater macroinvertebrates in East Africa will skyrocket,” Dr. Schmidt said.
Where the Hard and Soft Sciences Collide
Knobloch, who was a Biology major and member of the Beta Beta Beta and Omicron Delta Kappa national honor societies, sees this experience as a proving ground for a possible career in genetic counseling. She believes it offers the perfect blend between the hard lab skills she uses every day, and the soft skills she implemented as a New Student Transition Captain, a work-study student in the athletic training room, and a four-year member of the women’s basketball team.
“Even during my J-term internship at Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center, I gravitated toward the more emotional side of healthcare,” Knobloch said. “I like talking people through problems and working toward solutions, especially in a team setting. So with genetic counseling you have the genetics component, the health care component, and the emotional care component where I could tap into my Psychology minor.”
Whatever career she decides to pursue after her year-long contract ends, Knobloch will have skills that Dr. Schmidt believes will transfer to any discipline, like project management, literature review, and problem-solving techniques. Being skilled in those areas is “hard to quantify but easy to see the value in,” he said.
At the moment, Knobloch is enjoying the process of discovery, devising solutions to problems that until now didn’t exist.
“I get so excited seeing this research come to life in person. It’s my first big-girl job,” she laughed, “and I absolutely love it.”
Original source can be found here.
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