Published: August 04, 2008 12:55 am            

After graduation:

Pursuing a career in research

Peter Borheiinck is a recent West Virginia University graduate who received his bachelor’s degree in animal and nutritional sciences.

In August 2008, the 2004 East Fairmont High School graduate will be pursuing his doctorate degree in immunology, which is the study and research of the immune system. While in graduate school, Peter will be able to have hands-on experience working in different labs with professors on their projects.

In order to be exposed to different projects, Peter will be on rotations, ensuring he gains the most experience he can while working on his doctorate. His ultimate goal upon completion of his degree is to research medicine.

“I’ve always wanted to be a veterinarian ever since I was a child,” he said.

During his junior year in college, he took a biochemistry course, which was taught by a current graduate student. During this course, the graduate student often talked about research discoveries that had been made in the past and this got Peter thinking about research as a career.

This is when he made the transition from pursuing a career as a veterinarian to a research doctor. To prepare himself better for graduate school, Peter worked in a research laboratory at the Health Science Center at West Virginia University with a graduate student. During his time working with the graduate student, Peter performed a variety of laboratory tasks, such as real-time PCR, Western blotting, running DNA on gels and protein quantifications.

During this journey towards his doctorate, Peter does foresee some obstacles reaching his goals. To graduate, Peter must publish at least one research article in a scholarly journal, which takes a lot of time and effort.

After receiving his doctorate degree, Peter has some concerns about post-doctorate work. In particular, he may have to do a post-doctorate study, which is essentially another project that would get published.

This may prolong Peter from getting a job in a research laboratory, even though he will still be getting paid for his post-doctorate work. Once Peter has his doctorate degree in Immunology, he has aspirations of working in a medical research laboratory, in which he will hopes to work with T-cells and curing cancer, among other goals.

        

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