[00:00:02.69] DR JESSICA CLARK: So I have a little bit of a hard time saying no to students coming into my lab. The one-on-one interaction-- getting to know these kids in a different way-- getting to know what their interests are, and how I can help them get to where they want to go. It's an incredibly rewarding part of my job.
[00:00:23.33] - I work really closely with Dr. Clark, the PI here in this lab, and it's an opportunity that you aren't really afforded sometimes at larger universities.
[00:00:31.87] DR JESSICA CLARK: It's not all altruistic. They're bringing in really good ideas. And so they have this fresh perspective. Everything is still very global for them. So it's really beneficial to me as well.
[00:00:46.02] - Well, definitely, Dr. Clark of course, has helped me, and she welcomed me into the lab as a first-day freshman. The faculty here, especially, are really enthusiastic, and so it just makes you really enthusiastic when you come in to do research.
[00:00:59.65] - You know you're picking the mind of someone that's brilliant, and that's not something that you get to do on a regular basis.
[00:01:06.83] - It's definitely boosted my confidence because I started in the lab feeling like, oh, I don't know what to do. And I still feel like that all the time, but it's also just a great mentor to have.
[00:01:17.84] - The latter ones are on either side, so you know they're separating.
[00:01:21.75] DR JESSICA CLARK: I feel like the undergraduates here have a lot more opportunity for undergraduate research. They're starting from the very beginning. They're mating the fish. They're collecting the embryos. They're treating them. They're running the entire experiment. And then at the end of the experiment, we're analyzing data together, and they're writing papers, and they're doing all the things that, normally, you don't get an opportunity to do in undergrad.
[00:01:46.52] - So I've been able to get a lot of experience and meet a lot of great people.
[00:01:50.69] HANNAH ENNERFELT: Not many schools, I think, have that special spark.
[00:01:54.41] DR JESSICA CLARK: All my students have presented at the Salisbury University Student Research Conference, and we've also had a number of students traveling to the national conference for undergraduate research.
[00:02:06.97] - I never thought I would be conducting research with fish.
[00:02:10.73] DR JESSICA CLARK: What we're interested in looking at is how a hyperglycemic environment affects the nervous system of zebrafish. So we use zebrafish because they're, actually, very similar to humans-- they're a vertebrate model.
[00:02:23.82] AMANDA ROCKER: Because it's neuroscience based, and that's what I want to get into, it's just amazing to be able to look at the zebrafish and their nervous system, and look at them under the microscope-- it's really cool.
[00:02:35.27] - There's a connection between the damage to the peripheral nervous system and diabetic peripheral neuropathy.
[00:02:40.01] - Which is a common complication associated with having diabetes.
[00:02:43.70] HANNAH ENNERFELT: Which leads to a loss of sensation, pain, tingling-- I take a zebrafish, and they have transgenic genes, which allow them to flouresce, and that's really cool because I get to visualize their nervous system. So after I induced hyperglycemia, I mount and section them, and then I look at those genes and look at the damage that was done to the nervous system. And so from there, we'll be able to look at new therapeutic approaches.
[00:03:06.97] - I've been able to get my foot in the door early because I do plan on conducting research as a future career. So I've been able to get a lot of experience and meet a lot of great people.
[00:03:17.09] DR JESSICA CLARK: The quality of the students here has blown me out of the water. I knew that they were going to be good students, but I had no idea that I would have Fulbright winners, and I would have the president of SGA, and that I would have a student showing up on the first day of her freshman year because she already knows what she wants to do, and it's a PhD in neuroscience. The quality is unbelievable.