Guten Tag! Hello, everyone! I’m Valerie Doze, or Val, and I am 23 years old. I am excited to live in Göttingen, Germany while working in a lab researching infectious diseases. I grew up in North Dakota, one of the states bordering Canada. When I am not in the lab, I am hiking, skiing, and playing soccer and piano. Coming from the north, I love winter and cannot wait for more ice skating and skiing while in Germany. I also love learning languages and studied German in college, so I cannot wait to practice my German while living abroad this year.
Since I studied biochemistry ("bio" means life and "chem" means structures) in college, I love running experiments – using microscopes to look at cellular (and even smaller) structures. Therefore, I applied to the Fulbright U.S Student Program and got accepted to the program to move to Germany and conduct biochemistry research. Examining the mechanisms and structures of viruses can teach us a lot about diseases and help us find ways to stop them. In the lab, I will study coronaviruses, which became pretty popular in recent years.
Germany has some awesome scientific research going on, and I am excited to bring you along as our lab uses technology and microscopes that show us more than what we can see with our eyes. Can you think of the smallest object you have ever seen? Was it an ant or a period on a page? Our lab uses microscopes (technology that uses special magnifying glasses) with special laser lights that can magnify objects up to 100x as small as an ant! Once we use the microscopes, we can examine the structures of viruses that could enter and infect any of us. If we think of the Coronavirus pandemic, these tiny viruses can greatly impact us. Come along as we dive into the tiny world that surrounds us even though we cannot see it with just our eyes!
