allisonrs

Probably going to get buried but whatever. What made you choose Harvard over (I'm assuming) other grad school offers? I will be applying in the next year or two and I'm curious what made you/y'all make the final decision, reputation aside. My grades aren't the best they could be but I have three REU's to make up for it and three years of working in a lab at my university, volunteering for a virology non-profit, and will likely have be a co-author on at least one paper before applying. If that helps. I just like being at the bench.

I'm interested in virology, in particular host/cell interactions on a "protein " level if that makes sense. I want to get my CLS certification before going back to school, and use the CLS techniques and theory for research if that makes sense. How do you go about choosing what you want to dedicate yourself to for the next 5-6 years? I mean I know I'm not at a point to decide something like "yeah, I want to study protease inhibitors of influenza H3N2 entry mechanisms", but I know I like viruses. For lack of a better way to put it, they're bad-ass mothefuckers that don't give a shit about you and they're just gonna come in and wreck havoc. If that isn't cool I don't know what is.

Thank you all :)

I hope your recovery is going smoothly! I'm taking endocrinology this semester and we had an entire test on the pituitary gland and its hormones, so I think it's awesome you're doing an AMA! Did you just have the adenoma removed or your entire Pituitary? How big was it? How much hormone replacement therapy will you have to undergo? Also, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you? In class we learned that gigantism technically only occurs in childhood/ adolescence before the long bones completely fuse, otherwise it's called acromegaly. Same course of treatment though.

What is it about Flavaviruses that make it so prone to mosquito transmission? Dengue, WNV, zika, etc all have similar structures, are all arboviruses, and all have potential to cause neurological damage. I also work in a virology lab and we have contemplated it to no end.