Gabriel Prado, BS

Gabriel Prado, BS

Graduate Student
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida

Abstract 3719. Loss of Kmt2c, of the COMPASS-like complex, cooperates with oncogenic signaling in cancer.

What are your long-term goals? 

I am very passionate about science education and communication. I believe it is critically important for lay people to have science communicated to them in a fashion that is clear, accurate, and informative. I am very interested in pursuing a career in science policy or communication, where I would be able to use my scientific skills to educate and inform people who are not scientists but are making critical decisions that will impact the future of science, and thus society as a whole.

Please share information about how the pandemic has impacted your research over the last two years.

The pandemic had some very severe impacts on my research. There was a three-month period where I was completely unable to go into the lab, and thus not progressing my project directly. After that three-month stint, our lab had to work in a shift schedule; meaning I could enter the lab before 2 p.m. every day. The delayed start to every workday (causing consistent late night) and severely limited resources at work, lack of gloves, tips, etc., were painful obstacles in my graduate experience. The biggest hit, however, was the fact that at the start of the pandemic my mouse colony had to be sacrificed down to only maintenance levels. It was about half a year until my mouse colony was replenished to pre-Covid levels. The delay in my mouse work correlates to a half-year delay in the completion of my project and thus graduation.