Roberto Naranjo, Post 1

Hey everyone,

     I am really excited to be working in Dr. Robert Langer’s lab at MIT. His lab focuses on designing and developing drug and nutrient delivery systems. Back at my home institution, UCLA, I am in a large lab of 25+ researchers. When I stepped foot in Langer’s lab, my definition of large changed. There are 200+ researchers in my summer lab. I was a bit overwhelmed in the beginning but slowly, while getting to know everyone in my subgroup, it became comfortable. The training was very long and intensive, and it was about a week before I could actually start running experiments. At MIT, I work on my direct mentor’s projects in the lab. One of them is called SALTS, which are microparticles that are going to have vitamins and minerals encapsulated to withstand standard cooking procedures and then, release the vitamin/mineral only when digested in the stomach. The second project is called Hydrogel, which will be a type of cancer drug delivery system. The idea is to create a material that is thermoresponsive and will be a liquid at room temperature and solidifies at body temperature. I know that is a bit strange since we have a notion that if temperature increases, the fluid should not become a solid. There is a bit of polymer science to explain which I won’t here, but you guys will hear in my chalk talk! I am learning a lot of new synthesizing techniques and methods. I have always wanted to do drug delivery work and this is a great opportunity to get experience in this field which I could potentially pursue in graduate school.  Anyways, I am grateful for this experience and so far, I am enjoying every single day in lab.

Boston is super awesome! I am glad to be living in a different city other than LA. I have done multiple activities and explored many sites since arriving. I have explored Boston harbor, visited Paul Revere’s house, walked the whole freedom trail (on 4^th of July), and attended a Red Sox game (they lost). The weather here is a bit bipolar, but it’s okay because I have this awesome Red Sox pancho which comes in handy every time it rains. My friends and I planned a trip to NYC and we had a good time exploring the city. It was nice to hang out with friends from UCLA, and it was especially amazing since we weren’t stressed studying for an exam and such. I’ll have more adventures to talk about in the next few weeks and I’ll update you guys on how they went!

I hope everyone is having a great summer!

Best,

Roberto Naranjo

Extremely happy to be here!

Right before the 4^th of July fireworks!

Watching the Red Sox play at Fenway Park!

Mini MARC reunion in NYC with Swasty and Abel.

Lara Roach, Post 1

Hi Everyone! I’m Lara Roach, a rising senior majoring in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental biology. This summer I am conducting research at Stanford University through the Stanford Summer Research Program, working with Dr. Michele Calos. The Calos lab studies cell and gene therapies for muscular dystrophy. Muscular dystrophy is a genetic disease that affects 1 in 3,500 boys and causes muscular degeneration. There is currently no cure for this fatal disease, and the Calos Lab is working on creating cellular and genetic therapeutics. My project this summer will be to assess the efficiency of the developed treatments involving muscle stem cells. I will do this through a variety of testing including immunofluorescence staining, luciferase assays, eccentric contraction evaluation, and treadmill testing.

Outside of the lab, I have gotten to know the other undergraduates in my program’s cohort. We had a barbeque, visited a sculpture garden on campus, explored downtown Palo Alto, and competed in a scavenger hunt in San Francisco (my team, of course, won!). I am looking forward to getting to know everyone better and delving deeper into my research project!

The Hoover Tower on the Stanford campus

I learned how to use the cryostat to section muscle for immunohistochemistry

My scavenger hunt group in San Francisco

Arielle Tripp, Post 1

MARC SUMMER BLOG, 

Greetings from Boston, Massachusetts. My name is Arielle Tripp and I am a rising junior studying Human Biology & Society and Neuroscience. Currently, I am conducting research in the Neurosurgery department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as part of the Summer Training in Academic Research and Scholarship (STARS) program. My research is investigating the different pharmacokinetics (the movement of a drug into, through, and out of the body - what the body does to a drug) and pharmacodynamics (what a drug does to the body) properties of the drug, CGM097, on brain tumors within a mice model. CGM097 functions as an inhibitor of MDM2, aka Mouse Double Minute 2 Homolog. The MDM2 gene is an oncogene and plays a role in tissue development. The MDM2 protein functions as a negative regulator of transcriptional factor p53, a tumor suppressor. The protein expression of MDM2 and p53 is inversely related; an increase in MDM2 results in a decrease in p53 and vice versa. Normally, p53 functions as a powerful tumor surveillance mechanism; it regulates cell cycle, apoptosis, DNA repair and senescence. Mutations, however, can cause this system to go awry. For example, overexpression of MDM2 can result in cell over growth, tumorigenesis, and malignant transformation of cells. For this reason, MDM2 inhibitor drugs are essential in order to decrease its expression in cancerous tissue.

Therefore, my project is using mass spectroscopy analysis to do two things. First, we are analyzing the ability of the drug CGM097 to cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) and reach cancerous brain tissue. Secondly, once the drug has crossed the BBB, we are analyzing what its specific lipid and protein targets are within the cancerous tissue. The big picture goal of the project is to be able to develop a unique lipid and protein profile for brain tumors. Such a profile would allow a neurosurgeon, for instance, to take a sample of a patient’s brain during an operation and through mass spectroscopy analysis, evaluate whether the sample is cancerous or healthy tissue. This is amazing! One of the main obstacles remaining today in the field of neurosurgery is that during an operation often it is almost impossible to distinguish between healthy and cancerous tissue because they often look remarkably alike. Previously, the only way to view and locate the margins of a brain tumor was through continuous imaging; limitations of which included the possibility of cutting out healthy tissue, or leaving cancerous tissue behind.

Another big picture idea, more closely related to my project, is the ability of scientists to map within the brain the efficiency of anticancer drugs. Prior to the innovation of mass spectroscopy analysis of the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics properties of drugs, there weren't very good ways to observe and empirically quantitate a drug’s performance. I don’t know much about technology used prior to mass spectroscopy for such analysis, so I will highlight its advantages instead. One of the great things about mass spectroscopy is that it allows you to create an image of a brain with localized signals, accurately depicting the precise location of a drug within a tissue section. In my next post I will go into further detail about how exactly a mass spectrometer works. For now, let me just say that the technology is quite fantastic. It allows high resolution imaging of every single molecule present in a tissue sample. Therefore, allowing a wide variety of lipids, proteins, small drug metabolites, and blood to be easily differentiated between. The applications are limitless, though I will discuss a few in my next post about the mechanism of mass spectroscopy.

In closing, I’m enjoying my summer research program. It rains every once in a while, but I don’t mind; it’s nice to experience rain after being out in the desert that is California for so many years. This post was supposed to also cover some aspect of my personal experiences outside of lab - I’ll make sure to touch on that in the next post. As well as, some of the clinical shadowing and other events I’ve been able to attend as part of the BWH STARS program. Wishing everyone a great summer. Best, Arielle Tripp.

 

Pictured are my roommates and I under the Harvard Medical School (HMS) sign. The BWH STARS is one of many programs run by HMS during the summer. Although only the four of us are pictured, my program has a total of ten scholars. Three of which are medical students, and the rest are undergraduates from universities across the nation.

This is an image of a mice brain section imaged with a MALDI- FTICR mass spectrophotometer.  The green signals represent the presence or drug, while the red signals represent the presence of blood.

Abel Ferrel, Post 1

MARC Blog 1

            I was a bit nervous about starting at my new lab because it was at the Harvard Medical School and it felt as if I needed to be at “the top of my game” to be able to keep up with my mentor. It turns out that the people in Dr. Harrison’s lab have been great. My first week was very welcoming. The members of the lab were very nice and we talked amongst ourselves to get to know each other more. We have designated “tea time” every day at 4pm where tea is literally made and it’s a break from all the lab work that you have been doing all day. Many members of the lab go to it including my summer PI, Dr. Harrison. He and I have spoken a number of times, mainly during tea time, about what I have done back at UCLA, how I have adjusted to Boston and his lab, and his history in research. In summary, the lab atmosphere has been awesome. Although I am the only undergraduate of the 20+ people here, I really feel like a member of the lab.

            My direct mentor has been patient with me as I have been working to get myself acclimated to this new field, but has a great sense of humor to lighten the mood. At UCLA, my focus was on muscular dystrophy; however, my field here is immune response and viral structural biology. That being said, the techniques here are very different from those I use at my home institution. It is molecular biology and biochemistry heavy here and we work primarily on cell cultures. Considering I have never worked with cell cultures, I was happy to see I did not contaminate my first culture. It addition to that, I am working on generating plasmid vectors to transfect cells and generate my proteins of interest.

            I have enjoyed my time here so far and look forward to the coming weeks. 

I'm excited to be working in this lab!

A sunny day in Harvard!