Justin Mehl, 2017, Chemical and Biological Engineering

Justin Mehl ’17

This summer, I worked with Professor José Avalos’ lab group to characterize a light-inducible strain of yeast that I made during my junior independent work project. This strain of yeast, YEZ 61-23, was genetically engineered to either produce fluorescent protein when we shone light on it, or to change its growth rate depending on the amount of light it received. I was able to characterize the dependence of growth rate on the intensity and duty cycle of light received. The work involved PCR to produce genetic constructs and to characterize the genome of our synthetic strains; taking regular growth measurements via spectrophotometer to measure the growth rate; and constructing a light setup to measure the growth of the yeast. During this internship, I developed my ability to design, record, and analyze experimental data and to independently direct the course of my research.