{"id":8602,"date":"2025-12-11T14:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T19:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=8602"},"modified":"2025-12-11T14:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T19:36:10","slug":"lab-class-work-leads-students-to-big-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2025\/12\/11\/lab-class-work-leads-students-to-big-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Lab class work leads students to big adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MeenaWhen Meena Hanna and Malena Gjorgjevski left their first microbiology lab of the Winter 2025 semester, neither imagined where Hanna\u2019s armpit would lead them over the next few months.<\/p>\n

The University of Detroit Mercy students were partners for an experiment in Associate Professor Jim Graves\u2019 lab that focused on bacteria growth from various collected samples, including from an armpit. After a week, the petri plate that contained the sample from Hanna\u2019s armpit showed little to no bacteria growth compared to her classmates\u2019 results.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was wearing this deodorant when we swabbed our armpits and I wasn\u2019t even thinking about it at all,\u201d Hanna said.<\/p>\n

That deodorant was a lotion-based antiperspirant called Carpe. Hanna wrote to Carpe through an Instagram message about the results of the experiment and to her surprise the company asked her and Gjorgjevski to recreate and film their experiment at UDM for a commercial for the company.<\/p>\n

A few months later, Carpe flew them to its Durham, N.C., headquarters to record a professionally shot advertisement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such a really good experience, all from her armpit,\u201d Gjorgjevski said.<\/p>\n

Hanna discovered Carpe through TikTok and Instagram and started using their deodorant to help with sweat prevention while exercising. She wrote to the company only after some convincing from Gjorgjevski.<\/p>\n

\"StudentsEven then, her expectations were low.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe told me that you should send it to them and see what happens,\u201d Hanna said. \u201cIt ended up turning into a bigger thing. I thought they were going to just say, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s cool.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After hearing from Carpe in January, Hanna and Gjorgjevski\u2014who are both senior Biology students on a Pre-Dental track\u2014told Graves about what happened and asked for a new petri plate to recreate their experiment. This time, the plate had no bacteria growth, Hanna said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know if my swabbing technique was bad until we redid it,\u201d Gjorgjevski said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, wait, this is big news.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first, Gjorgjevski thought Hanna might get free deodorant from Carpe\u2014they both did during their visit to the company\u2019s headquarters, where they talked about their experience with its products for a commercial. But the experience taught them to take chances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told her to DM (direct message) them thinking it was just to get a response, because I actually thought it was a cool experiment,\u201d Gjorgjevski said. \u201cIf we never sent that in, none of that would\u2019ve happened. We would have our results and go on with our day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their findings left an impact on Carpe, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have different ads incorporating petri plates now, and they do that because I sent that,\u201d Hanna said. \u201cNow they know that it doesn\u2019t cause bacteria growth. They didn\u2019t know that before I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

UDM\u2019s learning environments have long fostered growth and opportunities for students like Hanna and Gjorgjevski. They appreciate how supportive and interested Graves was as they worked with Carpe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe told Professor Graves about what we did and he let us stay after lab and was all for it,\u201d Gjorgjevski said. \u201cHe gave us extra petri dishes and was super involved with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took time out of his day, when he could\u2019ve gone home or whatever,\u201d added Hanna. \u201cBut he stayed with us to help with our research, which means so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was super on board and interested. He was invested in it more than we were.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience taught them another, larger lesson.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents are probably like, \u2018OK, let me just do this assignment and get it done and over with,\u2019 but I feel like we did an assignment and can actually help someone that you don\u2019t even know,\u201d Gjorgjevski said. \u201cThere\u2019s a purpose to everything you do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Meena Hanna and Malena Gjorgjevski left their first microbiology lab of the Winter 2025 semester, neither imagined where Hanna\u2019s armpit would lead them over the next few months. The University of Detroit Mercy students were partners for an experiment in Associate Professor Jim Graves\u2019 lab that focused on bacteria …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9,29],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-2eK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8607,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8602\/revisions\/8607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}