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“It is a huge honor to win top honor in my section because there were a lot of really fantastic posters there,” Robbins said. “It’s nice to be able to meet people who are just as passionate about biochemistry as I am and learn from everyone else.”

Robbins, a biochemistry and molecular biology major and minor in history, began her research as a rising sophomore in the lab of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Will Conrad as part of the College’s signature Richter Scholar Program. She is currently completing her thesis work on the project she presented at the ASBMB conference.

Through her research, Robbins hopes to find new ways to prevent infection by the bacterial cause of tuberculosis, mycobacterium tuberculosis. Her goal is to engineer human cells to produce the antibiotic, d-cycloserine, in response to tuberculosis infection.

“Working on this research project in particular has also given me the opportunity to learn a really wide ranges of skills including working with cell culture, doing transfections, purifying proteins, using HPLC-Mass spectrometry, and designing plasmids,” she said. 

 “Doing research at Lake Forest College, I actually got the opportunity to come up with original research ideas, design the experiment to test them, and analyze the results.”

Students in the Conrad Lab learn to design and execute independent experiments during their first summer of research. Students working together on projects and celebrating each others’ successes are hallmarks of the lab. 

“Laurel has been a staunch advocate for her peers, working hard to build an inclusive team that will be listed as authors on her peer-reviewed manuscript,” Conrad said. 

Through multiple opportunities to present her work, “Laurel has completely mastered science communication,” Conrad said. 

In addition to presenting her research and winning the top prize for her category at the international meeting, Robbins’ research manuscript, “Heterologous Production of the D-Cycloserine Intermediate O-acetyl-L-serine in a Human Type II Pulmonary Cell Model,” has been published in the journal Scientific Reports—the fifth most-cited journal in the world, which receives widespread attention in policy documents and the media.

The opportunity to present original research at a professional conference and have her research paper under peer review by a respected journal will go far to help Robbins achieve her next goal: After graduation, she will be starting her PhD studies at University of Colorado Boulder in their Interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology certificate program before beginning her PhD in biochemistry.

“Professor Conrad has been an incredible mentor and teacher for me throughout the past four years. As a research advisor, Dr. Conrad takes the time to teach me skills and explain the molecular logic behind experiments while also giving me the freedom to come up with ideas and carry them out myself. Working in his lab is a really collaborative environment and I've been able to learn about more than just my research project. It's definitely been a factor for me wanting to be part of an interdisciplinary graduate program so I can solve big biological problems,” she said.

Related Links:

• Explore the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Lake Forest College
• Find out more about the signature Richter Scholars Program
• Meet Assistant Professor of Chemistry Will Conrad