Keeping up with the Pacers: Madison Ackroyd

Madison Ackroyd, a freshman majoring in Biochemistry, hopes to become a medical laboratory researcher.

She is currently in Dr. Hancock’s lab working on a project related to her course studies.

The project, called “bacteriophage and bacterial inhibition,” is focused on antibiotics and their developing resistance.

“In my project,” she said, “I’m using the bacteria phase, which are viruses that only infected bacteria to try and kill bacteria, essentially because antibiotics are becoming harder to use because of antibiotic resistance.”

She expressed her difficulties in lab, but shared a quote from Dr. Hancock that she reminds herself in the lab, stating that science is mostly errors.

Ackroyd said that if she had a choice to work on her own project she would want to study umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cells, to “differentiate them to basically engineer myocardial tissue for people that have had heart attacks.”

Outside of the lab, she shared her interest in her reading assignments.

“In one of my classes this week we are reading Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde. We read the ‘Importance of Being Earnest.” Ackroyd really enjoys these readings because they differ from what she has read before.

“I really enjoy my time here at USC Aiken. I enjoy having a small campus,” she closed.