Hello MARC-ians!
(MARC-iotes? MARC-ers?) Today starts the
second week of my summer program at UCLA, and it couldn’t have possibly been
better. I was able to enjoy the fantastic weather- a perfect, sunny 75- through
the HUGE windows in Terasaki Life Sciences Building, which has become one of my
favorite buildings on campus. It’s newly constructed and absolutely gorgeous,
and I’m so excited to be able to work in such a state-of-the-art facility this
summer.
And what a summer it’s been so far!
I get to continue my research on the development of the central nervous system,
and I can tell already that I’ll get so much more
accomplished on my project this summer than I would ever be able to during the
school year. I’m attempting to induce the lateral motor column motor neuron
identity from developing neural progenitor cells by creating a lentivirus that
will induce overexpression of Foxp1, a forkhead protein that is important for
LMC MN development. Things are going… sort of well at the moment. The beginning
stages of developing the myc-tagged Foxp1 virus are going well, and the
majority of my cloning is pretty successful. I’m also learning how to
differentiate neural progenitor cells from undifferentiated human embryonic
stem cells, which is a way more complicated and precise protocol than I ever
thought. These cells are just like small children and require so much more care
than other cultures I’ve dealt with the past year. I’m a little intimidated,
but with the help of graduate students in my lab I’ve been able to do really
well so far. I’m having some issues with cloning the HoxC9 insert, as we’re
developing a HoxC9 lentivirus as well, but I’ve revisited my negative results
and have made some adjustments that will hopefully pan out for the better later
this week.
It’s the
fourth of July on Wednesday and I’m really looking forward to experiencing my
first fourth in LA- I’ve always been at home or in another country during the
fourth, so I’m really excited to spend the day with friends and romp around the
city. I’ve recently rented a bike from UCLA’s outdoor adventure center, and
it’s been so much fun (and pretty nerve-racking) cycling around campus- LA
drivers are a whole ‘nother brand of crazy. It’s so much more efficient than
walking though, and you can explore so much more of LA. Summer so far is
looking like it’s going to be ridiculous amounts of fun both in and out of lab,
and I’m really excited for what the following weeks hold. Until then, my best
from the third floor!
Blog #2: 7/19/12
Hola todos!
I cannot believe that it’s already
been four weeks! Where did the time go? I’ve accomplished so much in lab but it
honestly seems like I’ve been in this program for days, not weeks. Crazy.
Yesterday
was the first time that I honestly understood what it’s going to be like to be
in graduate school, and I’m really thankful that I’m decent at time management.
Between running around campus for seminars and GRE prep classes, performing
experiments in lab, reading scientific journals and editing a bunch of my own
papers that needed to be done by the end of the week, I was literally busy from
9 am to 11 pm. Exhausting.
But on the
bright side, things are going really well! My cell cultures are developing and
beginning to differentiate, and this week I was able to make virus. Making
virus is an involved protocol that requires exact timing (change of media every
8 to 17 hours), so I’ve been pretty busy this week. I’ve also sectioned and
stained chick electroporations and by the end of the week should be able to
image them using a confocal microscope. We’re hoping to see if overexpression
of Foxp1 in developing chick embryos can lead to a change in motor neuron
identity. Cool! Being in lab for such an extended period of time each day
allows me to accomplish so much more than during the regular school year, and
it’s really exciting how quickly I’ve been able to get results and develop my
project.
We had an
awesome seminar last week that I keep thinking about- it was a graduate student
panel, in which we got to ask five graduate students pretty much any questions
we could think of. It was really cool to see things from a graduate student’s
perspective, and to hear more about the actual application process and get tips
on what and what not to do. Plus, all of the students (previous MARC students,
like me!) were so pumped about everything they were doing that I got so
incredibly excited about applying to graduate school. Ph.D. here I come!
Blog #3 8/9/12
Blog #4
8/31/12
Blog #3 8/9/12
Sup dudes!
The amount of things
I have crammed into the next two weeks is absolutely ridiculous. But it’s also
incredibly exciting… because I have data! Woo! Learning what it means and being
able to convey this to other people is another challenge, but at least I’ve
gotten over the first hurdle.
The viral constructs that I’ve made
are working effectively, and when we infect developing cells (both mouse and human)
with the lentivirus (a virus that can infect even non-dividing cells) I’ve
constructed through cloning, we see an increase in the expression of our target
protein, Foxp1! I still need to fine-tune the details to make sure that the
increase of Foxp1 is due to the lentivirus infecting these cells, but so far it
looks great. This week will be filled with a lot of antibody staining and
imaging to get pictures of all of my infections this summer so I can gather
information for both my research paper and poster.
The only downer is that it will be
another three weeks before I can infect my human motor neurons (I’ve done mouse
already) with the Foxp1 lentivirus, so I won’t have that data for our
end-of-the-summer poster session. I’ve set up some other experiments, including
more mouse motor neuron infections and a human cell transfection (in which you
simply introduce the DNA of interest, and are not actually infecting cells with
virus) to again ensure that introduction of Foxp1 will cause a change in cell phenotype.
Hopefully those results will be included on my poster!
I’ve been
wobbling around lab this week because I got the incredible opportunity to hike
Half Dome in Yosemite on Monday and my calves haven’t quite recovered. It was
one of the most terrifying, thrilling, and exciting things I’ve ever done. 12
hours, 17 miles, countless vicious squirrels, 4800 ft. of elevation gain, and
one set of really sketchy cables
later we were at the top! It was absolutely gorgeous, and was an experience
that I might do again. I think I’ll
have to wait a while before I recover physically and mentally. I was floored by
the marmots that live up at the summit- they look like beavers with no tails
(kinda like a prairie dog) and are so much larger than anything you expect to
be living on the top of Half Dome. I have no idea how they survive. I have no
idea how I survived. The pictures are just great though. Totally worth it.
Anyway,
back to the lab! See you all in a few weeks for the poster session!
Blog #4
8/31/12
Wow. What. A. Summer. I can’t
believe 10 weeks have already gone by! Yesterday was our poster session, and
today is the last day of the summer program here at UCLA. I’ll still be in lab
for about the next five days finishing stuff up, but oh man. I have gotten so
much accomplished in just ten weeks! I can’t believe it!
The poster session yesterday was
one of the most simultaneously exciting and terrifying things ever. I was
absolutely petrified about it before, because for some reason I have really
huge problems with public presentations. I had forced my roommates to sit and
let me present to them the night before the poster session (they REALLY loved
that), so I was pretty prepared but still had no idea what to expect. It ended
up being so much fun! My roommates and a lot of my friends came by, as well as
almost every person from my lab- I was so excited to see everyone, and it was
really cool to be able to finally explain what I do when I disappear to “lab”
everyday. I was pretty overwhelmed with the response I got from my friends, and
how proud and excited they were for me. It just sort of put things back into
perspective, and make me feel fortunate to have had this experience this
summer.
I’ve finished the summer right at
the brink of the final part of my research- I’ve spent the past ten weeks
making my lentivirus construct, and when I get back from a mini vacation will
finally be able to infect my developing human motor neurons to see if we
actually get overexpression of our target protein, Foxp1. I know I’ve used the
word “excited” about twenty times in this post already but I’m really excited
to see what results we get. Excited excited excited.
It’s Labor Day weekend! Woo! It’s
finally time to start off my summer, and I’m going hiking, to a baseball game,
and of course into lab (just for a little!). Busy weekend ahead and then it’s
to the beach to relax before the quarter begins. Hope your summers have been
just as great!
