Kathy Bertram was working in the fitness industry in 2020 when the pandemic tipped her very in-person world on its head.

Pre-pandemic, Bertram, who is 47, was already starting to feel the wear and tear that 20 years of teaching fitness classes had on her body—following years as a massage therapist before that, and serving in the United States Air Force right out of high school.

“It was a really good time to sever that part of my life and start to open the door to another one,” Bertram says.

She started taking classes at a community college, which her military benefits covered. She wasn’t quite sure what path she would take, but that clarified when she took a general biology course.

“I started to open up this biology door, and I was just hooked,” Bertram says.

Now a fourth-year animal science undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota (UMN), Bertram is honing her path even further.

Last spring, Bertram took a genomics of equine and companion animals class with Nicole Tate, a College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) alumna and postdoctoral researcher in the Veterinary Comparative Genetics Laboratory. Bertram knew immediately that she wanted more exposure to the genetics field. Bertram is a self-described “hands-on” person. She had already been able to spend some time working in the dairy barn on campus.

“I was hounding Dr. Tate a lot about getting opportunities in the genetics lab,” Bertram says. “It just so happened that there was a need for a student in the Canine Genetics Lab.”

That opportunity was made possible by Susan O'Conner-Von, a professor in the School of Nursing, whose donation funded the creation of a paid opportunity for an undergraduate student to spend a summer getting hands-on experience in the Canine Genetics Lab. Bertram says that because she’s older than most undergraduate students, being given the chance to have this experience meant even more to her.

O'Conner-Von says her long career as a nurse and educator has shown her the value of giving students hands-on experience.

“Learners have a much deeper understanding of concepts and content when provided with real life opportunities, be it in a lab or clinical setting,” O’Connor-Von says. As a dog lover and owner, “it was an easy decision when given the opportunity to create a positive impact on the learning experience of a student in the Canine Genetics Lab,” she adds.

A close encounter with genetics research

On her first day, Bertram started working side-by-side with Eva Furrow, one of the lead researchers in the Canine Genetics Lab. Furrow brought Bertram in on the project of the morning, testing two ultrasound probes to determine which would be the best one to image kidney stones. Through the UMN Veterinary Medical Center Body Donation Program, Bertram helped ultrasound a cat and take images of the cat’s kidneys that day.

“Kathy is absorbing all this new information through her courses and finding that she’s passionate about science. This was a nice opportunity to show her how it might look to apply her growing genetics knowledge in a career,” says Furrow, who is also an associate professor of small animal internal medicine.

Throughout the summer, Bertram got more of the experiential learning she was after. She coordinated with dog and cat owners whose animals needed urinary stone testing, and made sure all of the paperwork was properly completed before any animal entered a study. She shipped DNA testing kits and answered any questions that owners had about the process. Bertram says the experience gave her a snapshot of what lab work is actually like.

“It was eye-opening for me to see how research actually happens. There is so much preparatory work that goes into everything, I understand better why it takes so long,” she says.  

The experience solidified Bertram’s interest in pursuing a career focused on genetics.

“I love the study of genetics, especially when working with the things that Dr. Furrow is—the mutations that cause horrible diseases and what they can do to identify and ultimately treat and prevent these diseases,” Bertram says, adding that it’s important to give people in her position chances like these. “It’s never too late to go back to school, to try something new.”