GOALS: Service

I had an incredible experience over the last two years volunteering in Dr. Guo’s lab! I learned a lot about RNA nanotechnology and the applications of this technology in cancer therapy.

Year in Review- 1st Year

This year has been full of a wide variety of new people, places, tasks, and situations.  One aspect of this year which has been very interesting and intellectually challenging has been volunteering in a research lab during second semester. Coming into this position, my only experience with laboratory work had been general chemistry 1, which, as many are aware, just skimmed the surface of lab work. I’ve been working in Dr. Peixuan Guo’s lab alongside graduate students, who have taught me the functionality and maintenance of RNA nanoparticles as a vessel for administering cancer therapy to cancer cells. This involved a lot of use with pipets, agarose gels, and, more recently, cell culture. This is still a challenging position for me (even though my main goals here are to learn how to perform common laboratory techniques), because it is so different from what I was familiar with in the past. However, I have become more comfortable with these processes and the calculations required to accurately perform my tasks, and this work experience has helped me to get a position over the summer where I continue to work in a lab with cell culture and a study of the genetic effects certain drugs may have. I still have a long way to go in my knowledge of pharmaceutical sciences, but I hope to continue to grow and learn through these positions (and future experiences) in order to expand my professional working knowledge on the human body and how it interacts with pharmaceutical treatment.

GOALS-Service

As service is one of the main tenets of the Honors and Scholars program, I made sure to get involved with substantial service throughout this year. Community Commitment was an event I participated in where we went to a local park in Columbus and picked up litter and helped to make the park more visually appealing. At the Garden of Hope, a garden project maintained on Ohio State’s campus, I worked with a team to prepare the garden for the winter season by pulling out weeds and roots. Another service event I worked at was at the Martin Luther King Day of Service, and my position was at COSI, a children’s science museum in Columbus. There, we cleaned activity sets for children to learn more about the world around them. Additionally, on weekends when I go home to Cincinnati, I volunteer at my church’s childcare. In this position, I attend to children for the duration of the church service so that their parents can listen to the sermon. I also went to a fundraiser for the Special Olympics Club at OSU, where we helped the club to raise money for later projects. Finally, I worked at a youth football camp the week of the NFL draft, and there I helped register and sign in children and direct them to where they needed to be during this camp. Service is such a vital part of the Honors and Scholars experience, and every event has helped me to feel closer to my community of Scholars here at Ohio State, as well as the overall area of Columbus.

About Me

My name is Hannah Lingren, and I am a first-year Pharmaceutical Sciences major at The Ohio State University this year. After my undergraduate studies here, I hope to attend Medical School to become an orthopedic surgeon.

I attended Anderson High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, and throughout my four years there I competed on our Varsity gymnastics team and served as Vice President of our Key Club. I also and sang in chorus and participated in a community involvement organization called 9United.

Working with Appalachia Service Project over 3 summers, I have put my own physical labor to good use in order to make Appalachian homes “warmer, safer, and drier.”

During my time at The Ohio State University, I hope to develop my skills as a professional and build relationships in the medical field which can help me in the future. I also hope to participate in service groups focused on helping people in the Columbus area.