I am currently in my gap year while applying to medical school and joined the Kuhn Laboratory as a research technician in August of 2024. I graduated this past May from Rutgers University New Brunswick with a major in Cell Biology and Neuroscience. As an undergraduate student, I was heavily involved in genetic intestinal health research which laid the foundation for my interest in further pursuing research in my gap year. My research, under the supervision of Dr. Honghai Liu, in the Kuhn lab investigates cardiomyocyte proliferation and neonatal heart regeneration. I have assisted Dr. Liu with mouse and rat heart tissue isolation as well as cell quantification with immunofluorescence. I am particularly interested in exploring inducing cell cycling and proliferation in heart cells to discover drivers behind heart regeneration. I hope to contribute to identifying the key morphological changes that define cardiomyocyte cell cycling in my upcoming research.