After forming our team just a few months ago, Team Feat is currently working hard to brainstorm our project direction that we will work on for the next three years.
How do we go from our big goal of ending allergies to a specific research question that is feasible and adds onto existing scientific research? Ideas and brainstorming!
What have we been up to?
We spend the summer reading the current literature to learn about current treatments available for allergies and gaps in the research. We've also been meeting with our wonderful mentor Dr. Frauwirth to further discuss possible directions for our research. One challenge we've faced is understanding the literature because as a group of undergraduates the current science is way above our knowledge, but this challenge has also been a great experience as we learn more about immunology from experts in the field.
Being creative in our research process
Our team was posed with the challenge of coming up with as many possible solutions to our overall research problem within a few minutes. We came up with 130 different possibilities! While many were NOT feasible with current technologies or funding we actually do have a few avenues that we could go with our project. We're very excited to be exploring these as we write our literature review and first draft of our methodology.
Looking ahead
We're very excited to be taking these "baby steps" towards our ultimate goal: a finished thesis that contributes to the current scientific knowledge of allergy treatment. It will be a hard and long road ahead for us but we are eager to share this journey with you all.