Edwards knew he desired to do research but states he presumed that was something you did after you got your degree. Science education is particularly essential for Edwards, offered the educational chances he was given to help get to MIT. As a high schooler, Edwards participated in a Caribbean Science Foundation effort called the Student Programme for Innovation in Science and Engineering. Edwards has actually also taken a management function in the MIT Biotechnology Group, a campus-wide trainee group meant to build connections between the MIT neighborhood and believed leaders in business, industry, and academic community. For Edwards, the pharmaceutical and biotech industries play a clear function in illness treatment, and he knew he wanted to join the group prior to he even got here at MIT.
Edwards did have his reasonable share of healthcare facility check outs throughout his childhood. However, his own battles with infection and illness, and those typhoid animation headaches, became his motivation for pursuing a profession studying human illness. At age 6, Edwards was running impromptu baking soda experiments in repurposed glitter containers in his cooking area. Today, he is a senior at MIT, majoring in biology and biological engineering, thanks to a group of devoted mentors and an insatiable interest about how the body works– or, more precisely, how diseases stop it from working.
Finding a method into research
Edwards understood he wanted to do research study however says he assumed that was something you did after you got your degree. Envision his surprise, then, upon getting here at MIT in 2018 and conference schoolmates who not only had actually done research, but already had publications.
MIT senior Desmond Edwards majors in biology and bioengineering and looks into the intracellular life cycle of disease-causing pathogens while pursuing extracurricular activities concentrated on science education and outreach for diverse neighborhoods. Credit: Steph Stevens
” It was a fantastic first take a look at how research is done,” Edwards states of the class. Trainees took water samples from the Charles River and were anticipated to recognize the strains of germs found in those samples utilizing different biological strategies. They looked at the bacteria under a microscope. They analyzed how the samples metabolized different sources of carbon and determined if they might be stained by different dyes. They even got to try fundamental genetic sequencing. “We knew where we were starting. And we understood the end objective,” says Edwards. The in-between was up to them.
In Edwards case, she literally led him to the lab of Assistant Professor Becky Lamason, walking up with him one night to fulfill a postdoc, Jon McGinn, to talk about the laboratory and chances there. After Edwards expressed his interest to Lamason, she responded within 30 minutes.
” I think that was really what pressed it over the edge,” he says of his decision to take a position in the Lamason laboratory. “I saw that they were interested not only in having me as someone to help them do research study, however likewise thinking about my individual advancement.”
At the edges of cells and disciplines
Edwards has actually focused on Rickettsia parkeri, a tick-borne pathogen thats responsible for causing spotted fever. “I like to call it a glorified virus,” Edwards jokes.
Edwards gets thrilled describing the numerous ways in which R. parkeri can outmaneuver its contaminated host. Its evolved to get away the phagosome of the cell, the little liquid sac that forms from the cell membrane and swallows up organisms like germs that posture a hazard. R. parkeri, however, can likewise spread to uninfected cells straight through the membrane where 2 cells touch.
” From an illness viewpoint, thats exceptionally intriguing,” says Edwards. “If youre not being or leaving the cell spotted, you dont see antibodies. You dont see immune cells. Its very difficult to get that standard immune response.”
In his time in the laboratory, Edwards has dealt with different jobs related to Rickettsia, including developing genetic tools to study the pathogen and analyzing the possible genes that might be crucial in its life process. His projects sit at the crossway of biology and biological engineering.
” For me, I sort of live in between those areas,” Edwards discusses. “I am very interested in comprehending the mechanisms that underlie all of biology. But I dont only wish to comprehend those systems. I likewise wish to engineer them and use them in manner ins which can be advantageous to society.”
Science for society
Last year, Edwards won the Whitehead Prize from the Department of Biology, acknowledging students with “outstanding pledge for a profession in biological research.” His extracurricular activities have been driven more by his desire to apply science for tangible social benefits.
” How do you take the science that youve carried out in the laboratory, in different research contexts, and translate that in such a way that the general public will really gain from it?” he asks.
Science education is especially important for Edwards, given the educational chances he was given to help get to MIT. As a high schooler, Edwards participated in a Caribbean Science Foundation initiative called the Student Programme for Innovation in Science and Engineering.
” That experience not just type of opened my eyes a bit more to what was readily available, what remained in the world of possibilities, however likewise supplied support to get to MIT,” Edwards says of SPISE. For example, the program helped with college applications and worked with him to secure an internship at a biotech business when he first transferred to the United States.
” If education falters, then you do not replenish the field of science,” Edwards argues. “You dont get younger generations excited, and the public wont care.”
Edwards has likewise taken a management function in the MIT Biotechnology Group, a campus-wide student group indicated to construct connections between the MIT community and thought leaders in market, academic community, and company. For Edwards, the biotech and pharmaceutical industries play a clear role in illness treatment, and he knew he wished to sign up with the group before he even got to MIT. In 2019, he became co-director of the Biotech Groups Industry Initiative, a program concentrated on preparing members for market professions. In 2020, he became undergraduate president, and this year hes co-president of the entire organization. Edwards speaks proudly of what the Biotech Group has actually achieved throughout his period on the executive board, highlighting that they not only have the largest cohort ever this year, but its likewise the very first time the group has actually been majority undergrad.
In some way, in between his research and outreach work, Edwards finds time to minor in French, bet the Quidditch group, and serve as co-president on the Course 20 Undergraduate Board, to name a few activities. Due to the fact that of his genuine excitement and interest in everything that he does, its a balancing act that Edwards has actually mastered over his time at MIT.
” I dont like not comprehending things,” he jokes. “That uses to science, however it likewise extends to individuals.”
MIT Senior Desmond Edwards has a pressing curiosity about how the body works– and how illness stop it from working.
Desmond Edwards was a little kid when first found out about typhoid fever. The cartoon, produced by the Pan American Health Organization, was developed to educate individuals in his home country of Jamaica about the significance of immunizations for illness like typhoid.