Ok, first things first, my name is Tanea (pronounced Tan-A-uh) Tylette Reed. Much emphasis on the A! I was born on July 15,1976 in Tacoma, Washington. I have an older sister (she's 37!) named Anitra and two wonderful parents. They grew up in Mississippi (about 2 miles from the Louisiana border). So my dad is part Creole. This makes me special, because I don't know of anyone else who was born on this day. My dad was in the Army, so that's how we got to Virginia. Ma is 6'0" and Dad is 6'4", I got gypped on the height, because I'm only 5'3" and my sister is 5'2".

I have as always been an athlete. If I would've been born with a Y chormosome, dad wouldv'e made a QB or wide receiever out of me. He did that even though I wasn't a boy! He played football, basketball, and baseball. So naturally he passed those genes down to me. I've always beena dancer,too. It's come quite naturally to me. In all I have taken:

• 2 years of ballet
• 3 years of tap
• 3 years of cheerleading
• 5 years of jazz
• 6 years of baton
• 9 years of gymnastics

I love dancing, but I still like to get down and dirty and play some football, baseball, or soccer once in a while:)

I am from Newport News (aka Bad News, Virginia). It's a nice place to live though:). I have lived in the same house for as long as I can remember. I live in an area where you went to elementary, middle and high school with the same people, so that was kinda cool. School was cool. I've always been on of those people that can remember things really easily and regurgitate information, so they put my in all the accelerated classes. I went to Denbigh High School and graduated 23rd out of 590 in 1994. I got into every college that I applied to (i.e. NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, Virginia Tech, North Carolina A &T, UVA, and Clemson). Even the Harvard folks were tryin' to hook me up, but Harvard is too far away from home. So I chose Virginia Tech. So as you can see I'm a pretty smart person (my IQ is 146, that's a tad shy of GENIUS).

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) is located in Blacksburg, Virginia. The university has around 30,000 and that easily outnumbers the town. Since Va. Tech is located in Southwest Virginia, I picked up more of a Southern accent that I already had. It's in the boondocks for real. If you didn't know wher you were going you'd proabbyl miss it! We have a really good football team that is usually in the top 25 poll. We even won the Sugar Bowl a few years back! Our former quarterback, Jim Druckenmiller, is the back up QB for Steve Young and the San Francisco 49ers! Plus our basketball team won the NIT tournament in 1995 (I believe), and they usually advance into the NCAA tournament.

While at Tech I did undergraduate research under Dr. William Velander (chemical engineering professor). I worked ona project to extract immunglobulin G from transgenic pig's milk. Transgenic animals are those that are in juected with human proteins. Transgenic pigs secrete human protein A in their milk. Studies are showing that the protein A in their milk can be used in treating hemophiliacs for blood-clotting. Hemophiliacs have an irregularity in the way that they clot their blood. They can easily bleed to death from a paper cut or something that is less severe for normal blood-clotting folk. It's quite sad actually, but at least research and progress is being made!And I can say that I actually was part of something that big! I mean this research can actually save people's lives if the results turn out to be, what we hope they will be!

This past May, I graduated from Virginia Tech with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and a minor in chemistry. I think that I may want to further my education and go on to pharmacy school, and become a pharmacist:) Pharmacist=legazied drug dealer (you know what I mean!) I always wanted to have a career that will help someone else, more than it will help me. But we'll see how that goes! Right now, I am woking for the Virginia Department of Consolidated Laboratory Services (that basically means the Virginia State Laboratory). I work in the molecular biology department, working with foodborne outbreaks. I do DNA testing to see if people are infected with the same strain of foodborne organism (i.e. E.coli, Salmonella, Staph, etc.). It's a lot simpler than it sounds. I really like it and the people are super nice, which is a perk! How many people love what they do AND get paid for it:)

Here is what I looked like as a baby:

And here's another one:

And this is what I look like:) This was taken a while ago, but I haven't changed:)

Sorry about the fuzziness, but it is a very nice photo (even though I'm not that dark in real life:)

To return to the main page, press the smiley face below