Introducing Stephanie Lam of the Faculty of Health Sciences!

Name: Stephanie Lam
Major: Health Sciences
Year of Study: 3rd
Supervisor: Dr. Angela Devlin, UBC Faculty of Medicine

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: Pediatrician

Q: How did you get involved in research?
A: I was particularly interested in medical research and I started to do my own research on areas of research within the faculty of medicine. Luckily, I came across many researchers located in CFRI that researched areas that were very interesting to me and I contacted Dr. Devlin to see if there is anything I could get involved with.

Q: What have you been working on in your research so far? (What is your research about?)
A: I am helping out with a human project that aims to understand cardiovascular outcomes that are affected by second-generation antipsychotic treatment. We are also trying to identify biomarkers that can be used to identify children who may be at risk for cardiometabolic side effects.

Q: What is a typical “day in the life” in the lab for you?
A: DNA/RNA extraction from blood cells, genotyping, blood processing, mouse work

Q: What scares you the most in the lab or the field?
A: The thing that scares me the most in the lab is making a small mistake that could cost the lab a lot of money and time. When working with such tiny amounts of samples, I am often scared that my lab technique is inadequate and won’t give the desired results. With the nature of this project, our samples are often very limited and must be used carefully.