Janet enjoys playing the piano and the violin. She is a member of her school's math and science clubs. In the future, Janet would like to pursue her interest in "biomedical and cancer studies." Her science is hero is Albert Einstein, "because he had a disorder that prevented him from learning how to read and write easily, yet he overcame this obstacle to become one of the greatest scientists in the world."
Janet's father, an oncologist, intrigued her by describing how cells become cancerous. She knew that ultraviolet light could damage DNA and eventually cause skin cancer. She wanted to know if different wavelengths of UV light impacted the severity of damage to DNA.
Janet inserted the gene for resistance to ampicillin into circles of DNA called plasmids. She exposed the plasmids to various wavelengths of UV light. She then inserted the plasmids into E. coli bacteria. If the gene had been damaged, the bacteria would not be resistant to ampicillin. By growing the bacteria in the presence of ampicillin, she could determine if the gene had been damaged or not. She found that UV light with a wavelength of 254 nm destroyed 99.9% of E. coli colonies within one minute. But UV light of 366 nm did not lead to the destruction of any E. coli colonies, even after 10 minutes. Janet concluded that UV wavelength is a key factor in how much DNA damage it inflicts.
