This Week At CART – Alessandra Telles

Hola! My name is Alessandra Telles, and I am a senior attending the Center for Advanced Research and Technology. I have taken part in the Psychology and Biomedicine labs. I am currently in the Biomedicine lab where I get to learn about basic anatomy and physiology of the human body. We are researching how diseases develop and progress, and exploring new technologies, treatments and research breakthroughs in the biomedical field. This lab is unique because students get to build ideas on each other’s conversations and the topics we can have about medicine are my favorite. I would say my peers in this lab are passionate about what they are learning, which makes coming to class more enjoyable.

Recently in the Biomedicine lab, our class has been studying body systems one by one. This week our class has completed our first lab of the year. The lab was about the integumentary system consisting of the skin, hair, and nails. The lab was divided into five stations. My partner and I tested touch receptors, fingerprints, fingernails, temperature receptors and we were able to examine our hair. The purpose of the lab was to see how important the integumentary system is and how it affects our overall health. A takeaway from the experiment was the integumentary system serves as the outer protective barrier of the body and has several functions that play a role in maintaining homeostasis in the body.

I would strongly recommend this lab to my peers interested in hands-on lab work and a passion for science and research. Instead of just learning about problems from a textbook, students in biomedicine can engage in project-based learning and address real world challenges.