In a previous blog post (https://blogs.ubc.ca/lai463/2016/09/24/draft-research-question), I had shared a draft version of a research question that I was considering for the final project, which was the following:
“Are there genes that are expressed by the developing embryo that induce tolerance against the mother’s immune system?”
However, I later learned that my question had already been investigated. Therefore, I decided to create a new and original research question:
“Is chronic prenatal alcohol exposure sufficient to decrease production of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α by alveolar macrophages in response to infection by Streptococcus pneumoniae during adulthood in mouse models?”
There are a few reasons why I chose this question:
Firstly, I wanted to propose an experiment that could increase our knowledge of the immune system. I am an Integrated Sciences student with immunology as one of my integrations, so I am interested in learning more about the immune system.
Secondly, as the course title of BIOL 463 is “Gene Regulation in Development”, I wanted my research question to relate to development by investigating how a particular treatment during an early stage of life can affect processes in the body later in life.
Thirdly, I was inspired to study the effect of alcohol exposure because I have experience as a research assistant performing alcohol experiments to investigate the effect of acute alcohol exposure on learning (link to a previous post where I interpreted data that I collected: https://blogs.ubc.ca/lai463/2016/11/02/unprompted-post-data-interpretation-outside-the-classroom/).
Finally, I designed my question to be very specific to ensure that my question has not yet been investigated. This is important to me because I want my project to allow the potential discovery of new information that no one has ever known. In my opinion, by investigating an original question, the outcomes of the investigations are more meaningful.
With my new and original research question, I look forward to completing the rest of my final project.