When asked about her area of expertise, Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center biological lab technician Amy Bundy replied that she does a little bit of everything.

"I work with mice. I do biology experiments, chemistry experiments, you name it,” Bundy said.

One of Bundy’s areas of research is epigenetics, which can be defined in multiple ways. In this case, Bundy focuses on how a parent’s diet changes the genetics of its offspring without causing a mutation in the DNA. The current study she works on is focused on a diet for mice.

From these studies, Bundy and her team are hoping to find out how the female mice’s diets affect their offspring, particularly if there are any changes in the offspring’s brains.

Bundy explained, “We’re wanting to uncover if a pregnant mouse is fed a less healthy diet, does that program the offspring to want to eat a less healthy diet as well?”

This can be applicable in the human world and lead to a significant impact on nutrition during pregnancies.

Working toward this larger goal, one of Bundy’s favorite parts of her job is seeing the results from the study, which are sometimes unexpected.

“I like tabulating all the results and seeing the outcome and going, ‘Hey, yes, this is what we expected,’ or, ‘Hey, we didn't expect this, but this is really cool,’” Bundy shared.

“It's small things here and there that make the story whole,” Bundy said with a smile.

Bundy recommends working at the Center for many reasons, including the variety of research and the people employed there.

“It's a great place to work,” Bundy said. “No day is the same day twice because you’re working on different experiments. Plus, it's such a great bunch of people who collaborates together to get even more meaningful work done.”