Tomas Ganz' Lab

Hello Everyone,

Hope your summer experiences are going well! Where to start with mine. Well, this is my first real professional research lab position, and I am working under a 2nd year Ph.D. student-Emilio Ramos, in the Defense Lab (Tomas Ganz) in CHS corridor 5-2 at UCLA. The lab is centered around iron and its metabolism. Lost for words, but, man it feels like I'm part of something big. the PI is incredibly intelligent, incredibly successful, but really approachable. Always busy, however, as he's starting a business. His right-hand, Ella, is also really neat. I want to say more, but hey, this is just about us, eh? My mentor, Emilio, it is almost scary how similar we are. Both lefties, both dad's drive trucks, both first gen. collegiates, both into the same kinds of music, etc., etc. What's more, he looks like an older, darker version of my brother. I really need to post pictures, hehe. I've talked with peers in the summer programs, and many have mentors that are older. I feel kinda lucky to have a younger mentor, as we quickly built a great rapport, and it's not difficult to ask a question. On to the research aspect. It's kinda weird, this "cutting-edge" research, because no one has the answer. I never realized how little we actually know, but at the same time, it's not that hard to ask the "next question," since as we experiment, we're already asking it, hehe! Personally, I'm working with my mentor to elucidate the molecular mechanism of regulation of the hepcidin hormone - which regulates iron levels in the body. The major disease we're concerned with is hereditary hemochromatosisI won't go into too much detail, but we all know about iron and rust...imagine it in your liver, pancreas, bones, joints, and brain! I never really thought about it, but iron overload is pretty bad, haha! Insofar, we're testing in vivo hepcidin expression levels in response to different diets (in mice). We're soon moving on to in vitro cell lines with different gene mutations, etc. I actually understand what's going on, haha! Workin' 6 hours straight in a microbiology lab is friggin' exhausting though! I'm tired every day. Nevertheless, I know this is for me :O) Richard A Rodriguez (RAR)