Developing an Experimental Model to Study Natural Variation and Genetic Robustness

Emily McDermott

Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Gyorgyi said, Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. It was a tenant of my high school research program, one which resonates with me deeply. This was one of many mantras instilled in me by that all-star teacher, Ms. Zeitlin. I learned the importance of looking beyond the journal, the lab bench, and the next deadline in scientific research . . . I sought to investigate how generalist strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae withstand mutation compared to specialist strains. I wanted to explore how the genetic robustness of environmentally robust strains compared with that of non-environmentally robust strains. Is there a relationship between environmental and genetic robustness, and, if so, how is that relationship defined? Multiple replicates of a chemical mutagenesis experiment would be carried out for this investigation, though it would be unclear what mutations occurred, until a model with confidence was achieved and genome-wide sequencing carried out.