Alex Poppel BA ’20 MA ’21 double majored in CIS and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry with a minor in Molecular Biophysics. He is currently working in Professor Amy MacQueen’s lab. Poppel chose to major in CIS because he liked the strong sense of community within the major, and found that learning about different branches of science helped him probe questions within his own area of research. He remembers discussing the process of water purification in the Senior Colloquium for the major, in which students were asked to devise their own methods for purifying water based on knowledge they had from their main discipline of study. He was fascinated to learn that the actual process does in fact draw on a mix of knowledge from different disciplines, an experience that showed him how combining different viewpoints could lead to the best solution.
Poppel’s project in the MacQueen lab has focused on studying the role of the E3 SUMO Ligase Zip3 in recombination propagation and the assembly of synaptonemal complex, a protein structure that forms between homologous chromosomes during meiosis. Poppel is currently pursuing his Master’s in the MacQueen lab through the BA/MA program, after which he plans to obtain a PhD in structural biology.