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>> ALEX LOOMIS: I got into research, actually, my freshman year. I got an e-mail asking if
we were interested in biology research, and it was a seminar course. I started there.
Professors came in and talked to us about their research, and then they gave us an opportunity
to do rounds in different labs. And from there, I ended up here and I've been here since my
sophomore year.
The project that I'm working on is part of Rachael's [Rachael Morgan-Kiss, Assistant
Professor of Microbiology, Miami University] Antarctic algae. I'm using two Antarctic algae
strains as well as an Ohio algae strain. I grow my algae. We start off in what's called
a shaker flask, where it constantly spins, and then we'll transfer it to algal tubes,
which we grow in the tanks behind me and from there I can run my experiments.
Today I was running an experiment on my algae, where I put different concentrations of a
chemical into their growth media to induce reactive oxygen species, which will stress
the organism. And my goal was to measure the reaction to these chemicals to see a difference
and if they might be more resistant to the reactive oxygen species than other algae.