Big research goals? You bet. But you won’t find Breann Brown visualizing award ceremonies. She finds joy in daily benchwork, mastering lab techniques and instruments. “I've always liked to work with my hands,” she says. “When I was younger I had an erector set and a miniature pottery wheel and I would just be in my own world when I made things. It's the same with lab work. When I do an experiment, I like to work out all the details, and it feels great when I finally get results.”
Photos by Mary Beth MeehanAs a doctoral student in the department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology, Brown uses a technique called X-ray crystallography to study proteins in brain cells—in particular, parts of the cell called dendritic spines, which protrude from the main body of the cell and help it communicate with other cells. “The protein I’m looking at is fairly novel and not well characterized,” Brown says. “We know what it does, but not how.”
Working with Rebecca Page, an assistant professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry, Brown’s procedure is akin to taking an X-ray photograph of an arm. “I shine a very focused X-ray beam into a crystal that’s made up of hundreds of thousands of protein molecules,” she explains. The beam diffracts, or bends, and the pattern it creates is collected by a computer, which Brown uses to create a three-dimensional model of the protein.
“When we solve the structure of a protein, we can learn a lot about how it functions and how it interacts with other proteins,” she says. Certain protein interactions, or the lack thereof, can misshape the dendritic spines. Abnormal shaping has been linked to Down syndrome, schizophrenia, and some brain tumors. She hopes to someday contribute to the development of drug therapies that would mimic the protein interactions that maintain normal cell structure.
The science of drugs—pharmacology—sparked Brown’s interest at Duke University when she attended a freshman-orientation lecture on drug and alcohol use. The Maryland native heard how Ecstasy users often drink large amounts of water before taking the drug to stave off a side effect, dehydration, not knowing that too much at once can result in death. “From then on,” she says, “I was interested in knowing how different drugs, both therapeutic and drugs of abuse, work and how they affect the body.”
This year, Brown wrote a research proposal that won a National Science Foundation award. “I am really beginning to understand how to write for a particular audience,” she says, “and how to convey my research in a way so that others are just as interested in determining the outcome as I am.”
Mentoring is another way of preparing for her academic research career. As a senior scholar with the University’s Initiative to Maximize Student Diversity, Brown helps train new graduate students in writing scientific abstracts and designing presentations.
These students are likely to hear her prescription for success: Pick a research project that you're truly interested in, she says, and surround yourself with a great support system. “Leaving Brown with a lot of publications and awards would be wonderful,” she explains, “but it's not worth it if you waste five years of your life being miserable.”
— Jennifer Sutton
