Week 2


Hope everyone is having a great Friday!

First of all, you might have noticed the title of my blog has changed. I haven't changed my project topic; I just wanted to refocus it on particular aspects of the research being done in the Gallitano lab. I also edited my Senior Research Project Proposal, which you can see by clicking on the Project Proposal link to the right.

I spent most of this week imaging the slices of mouse brains, which is cool because I am learning which mice types have more or less fluorescent markings (the gene knockout mice have virtually no markings because they are lacking the EGR3 gene that would cause them, while the normal wild type mice have lots of markings on their brains). However, it is still a lot of sitting in a small room in the dark starring at mouse brains, so I was happy that I got to do something different today.

Today I helped out with a new experiment the lab is running where they inject the brains of live mice with a virus that inserts genes that the lab hopes will help counteract the symptoms experienced by the knock out mice. If the mice are better at adapting to novel situations, are less aggressive, etc. it could show an interesting possibility for treatment (at least in mice). My job to help out with this was to pipette 10 microliters of virus solution into different tubes, and then put them briefly in the centrifuge. I had thought pipetting in general was a little stressful, but pipetting virus samples is even more nerve racking! Still it was a really interesting experience.

I also learned how to use the autoclave today. For those of you who don't know, an autoclave is a machine that heats up things to sterilize them, and the one in the lab uses steam. I was sterilizing some pipette tips that would later be used during genetic testing of the mice (they need to be sterile so no foreign DNA messes up the results). When you autoclave things you have to put a piece of special tape on them that changes color if it gets to the correct temperature.

Anyway, today was a fun end to the week!  I feel like I am learning a lot, not only about autoclaves, pipettes, and mouse brains, but also about what working in a lab is like. Thanks for reading!