Leila Lin
Graduate Student, Larracuente Lab
You work in a laboratory. What are you currently researching?
I am a 2nd year PhD student in Amanda Larracuente’s lab, where we’re interested in genomic conflict and the evolutionary and functional consequences of repetitive DNA. My project focuses on the centromere. Specifically, I want to dissect an interesting centromere that we found in Drosophila sechellia where the centromere has moved to the telomere! The answers I’ll find studying this model will be a window into how the different chromosome organizations we observe across the tree of life came to be.
What was it that originally sparked your interest in biology?
I can’t recall a specific “spark” moment but having great teachers throughout my life had a lasting impact on me. I guess a collection of sparks. They made biology fun and pushed me to practice integrating pieces of information together. It also helps that I’m someone who loves looking at the world and drawing connections between my observations with things I learn at school. To quote my high school biology teacher’s mantra, “Prior knowledge, connect the dots.”
What’s the most important thing that you’ve learned working here and/or studying biology?
Inspiration can come from unlikely places. Especially in biology where there are rarely any universal rules; there is always some obscure exception. I have learned that, too often, a mechanism found in one organism is not necessarily the same in another. However, there is still a lot to learn from other models to draw inspiration for my niche corner of biology. Inspiration even comes from outside of biology. Sometimes I like to imagine metaphors for abstract concepts like a marble run track for regulatory networks (and even canalization).
How do you unwind when you’re not in the lab?
When the weather is nice, I like exploring the various parks and little hiking trails around the area. Letchworth is nice but the little parks around the city are underrated. Growing up in San Francisco where there are a lot of natural parks, that was something I missed when I did my undergraduate studies in Southern California. Other than that, I like to hang out at home with my partner and two cats Timmy and Dumpy.
What is one thing about yourself that you’d like more people to know?
I am really good at ping pong.