"Speaker 1: So my name is Jennifer Kielczewski and we're at the National Institutes of Health,
specifically in the National Eye Institute.
We're in the laboratory of immunology.
So we work on the eye and specifically we work on uveitis which is an inflammatory eye
disease.
Anytime you have inflammation inside the eye specifically in the retina or any of those
inside tissues that's very bad and could lead to visual distortion.
Because people don't appreciate how important your vision until you lose it.
The first interest began in science was in elementary school we went to NASA which is
in Greenbelt, Maryland and I remember growing plants and flowers at a very early age and
was always very curious as to how things grow and why they grow.
At an early age I knew I wanted to do biology because I was always fascinated by the biological
world and I always asked my parents a lot of questions and they told me, well go research
it or look it up.
So I began very early always looking up things and doing a research career.
It's not a very boring type of job it's a very exciting and enthusiastic career to have.
So on a frequent basis I do dissections as well as microscopy work looking at ocular
tissues and trying to figure out why things are inflamed and how to reduce inflammation
in the eye in order to help people see better and to find new therapies and interventions
to help prevent blindness.
So here's the retina, the retina's commonly inflamed in uveitis.
I'm pulling it away from the eye cup, and then I will cover slip it and flat mount it
with the media and then it'll be ready to be imaged.
This is the retina that has been flat mounted so now it is fluorescently labeled with a
yellow dye that labels my ganglia cells so I will go to the microscope and then image
the retina flat mount and look for these specific retinal ganglion cells that are in the retina.
And the retina has quite a adeptness to it so we use confocal microscopy to go through
the retina at the different layers.
So it's a very independent career, on a daily basis I get to plan what to do.
Every day I come to work and I get to run different essays and look at different parameters.
I don't come in and look at the computer everyday, I constantly in the lab doing something, working
with other people, collaborations, going to meetings, so everyday is a new adventure.
So we're studying RIBP which is inter-photoreceptor retinoid-binding protein.
This is an important protein in photoreceptors, so I plan to look at this in another format
such as Western blotting or some type of other protein analysis.
Speaker 2: Just to conclude the observation from the eyes.
Speaker 1: The lab is a serious environment, but we have a lot of fun doing what we do.
So?
Haha.
So there are lots of opportunities out there to explore science and to figure out whether
your a good fit for it, but I certainly encourage people to start exploring their choices in
high school, even earlier, and to figure out whether or not science is a good career for
you."