Name: Tracy Bedrosian
Hometown: Plymouth, Michigan
Hobbies: horseback riding, hiking, eating breakfast for dinner, traveling, and trying new things
What do you study? Jumping genes! DNA is like a code that gives instructions for each cell to do its job. Jumping genes are small pieces of DNA that can copy and paste themselves into new places in the DNA code and change the way a cell functions. I am studying how jumping genes influence brain cells and behavior.
Why is it important? Jumping genes can help to make brain cells different from one another by tweaking each one’s function in unique ways. They may even contribute to personality and individuality. In cases when they get out of control, they may contribute to brain disorders and disease.
What do you like about being a scientist? I get to work on things that are interesting to me and my day to day work is varied. Some days I am doing hands on experiments, some days I am working at a computer, and other days I am designing a presentation to display my results. I am challenged in different ways. Also, I have made great friends as a scientist.
This is a plot showing how we measure the number of jumping genes in a brain cell. Each dot represents a molecule of DNA and its location on the graph tells you whether it contains a jumping gene or not. Here we added the total DNA from about 20 cells (in the picograms – a very tiny amount) and you can see about 15,000 individual molecules of DNA.
