Evan Tilley's Page

Week five went by so fast; hard to believe it’s over. I found out that Dr. Simmerling is out of the lab for the rest of the time I’m here, but we can still work together. He keeps emailing me with a list of things to do. I feel I’m getting the hang of the RNA repairing, however there is only so much I can do; all of the readings over RNA said there is still no real way to fully repair it. This week I have been looking at RNA hairpin folding, this is where the RNA helix folds into a hair pin like… Continue

Week four, and i'm starting to get things done. At the end of this week, before Dr. Simmerling left, we were able to finish one of the RNA repairs we had been working on. It's weird, now that Dr. Simmerling left, it will take a longer time to get the projects done. However i'm not worried about it to much, I know i'll come up with something. I'm really looking forward to the next few weeks, have to get alot done before I leave but it should be fun. It will be interesting to see what I do next, n… Continue

Week three, half way done and there is still a lot to do. This week has been awesome; I’m getting the hang of the programmers which makes things a lot easier. Working on RNA is really cool; I get to see how it interacts with the body and some of the functions of RNA. The first part of this week I learned the differences between RNA, where one helix has a magnesium ion bond where the other doesn’t. Then I compared the two on a animation program they have called VMD. After, I looked at a animation… Continue

Wow, week two and still much to do. It's been really working in the lab with some of the other students. I'm learning a lot of new things, like how to use UNIX and other programming tools. It can be hard to learn at times, but at least their are other students around that are new at it to. Dr. Simmerling has been really great, the project he put me on is really cool, but their are a lot of things I don't understand about it. Dr. Simmerling says it will all come in time, and that you just have to… Continue

Man the first week is done already, and their is so much to do. I got into Stony Brook Sunday, but didn't meet with Dr. Simmerling until Monday. The first day I met him, he told me I would be working with RNA repairing which is something I know nothing about. He told me to just go over the basics so I could start going into the fun stuff later. My first week has just been going over the basics, but still it’s very interesting. Dr. Simmerling says that other scientists are still trying to come up… Continue