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The University of Scranton
Scranton, PA 18510-4699
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Megan Chan
Megan Chan is a junior Biology major with a concentration in Nutrition. She is a member of the Honor’s program, the Biology club, the Photography club, Health Profession’s Organization, and IEEE. She is also a work-study for the University's physics/Engineering department and a volunteer in the emergency department at the Community Medical Center.
Megan approached Dr. Michael Sulzinski knowing that she wanted to get involved in research in the field of microbiology. She had had no previous experience with research so Dr. Sulzinski offered her a choice between participating in his current project or working on an individual project that he hadn’t had a chance to pursue himself. She made plans to begin her research that summer. She then found out about the President’s Fellowship for Summer Research, and decided to apply.
She was awarded the fellowship in 2011. Receiving the fellowship allowed her to live on campus, which enabled her to contribute more time to her research than she would have commuting from home as she had originally planned.
Megan’s research is focused on Burkholderia cenocepacia, the most clinically relevant strain of bacteria among those that cause infections within the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis. Death is usually caused by lung infections or lung complications due to infections in the thick mucus accumulation that the disease causes. Upon learning that this research could aid in faster more efficient diagnosis of this bacterium she was eager to begin. Since she aspires to be a doctor, she wanted to get involved in a project with ties to the medical field. Megan says, “This project has a great cause, and I couldn’t imagine a better field to get involved in for my first research experience.”
She began her research by growing fresh Burkholderia cenocepacia cultures from patient samples acquired from Dr. John J. Lipuma from the University of Michigan. Once she had them grown she then began a series of tests to determine and optimize a suitable primer pair by varying conditions such as annealing temperatures and magnesium concentrations. She performed many of these experiments using a polymerase chain reaction procedure. She is currently continuing her research beyond the summer fellowship through the faculty-student research program. She hopes that the research that she conducted will eventually lead to a publication, as well as the development of a new diagnostic tool for patients with this bacterial infection.As for words of wisdom to other students, Megan says “Get involved with research as soon as possible to see what you like and don’t like. That way you can make better decisions for the future. Don’t be afraid to approach professors, the worst they can say is no.”
