Paola's SACNAS adventure.

Hello my fellow MARC peoples,
This October 9th through 12th I assisted the SACNAS conference. It was a marvelous experience. I learned a lot about the research going on in the poles. During the poster session, I met a student from Puerto Rico that also performed brood sizes for C. elegans. We conversed about the protocol that we followed for the experiment. I was very happy to give her some suggestions.
At the exhibitor session at the conference I had the opportunity to talk to direct representatives of some summer programs that I am interested in applying to for summer 2009.
I was very happy to see the greatness of the conference and the so much interested in science.
But must importantly I got to bond with the other MARC kids!!!
On the Last day, right before coming back to LA, the UCLA student I roomed with and I got a quick tour of Park City and got to see snow for the first time!!

Happy fall 08!!

peace.

Maylen's Summer in Puerto Rico!

Hello Everyone!

I spent the great majority of this summer as an REU Summer Research intern on the El Verde Frield Research Station in the El Yunque National Rainforest in Puerto Rico. I left June 6th, and returned August 8th. The two months I spent over there were an amazing oportunity and experience.

My mentors were Dr. Jorge Ortiz and Debora Figueroa. Dr. Ortiz had much work to do, so Debora was really my full-time mentor. I had so much fun working with her on a project designed to quantify the carbon quality in urban rivers in Puerto Rico. The first week I arrived was a nightmare! I had to leave early, before spring quarter ended, so I still had papers to write and finals to take. That first week I had to finish all my school stuff AND do all the research for my summer project because we had a research proposal to turn in and present the next week. After that initial hectic struggle, the rest of the time was pretty well managed.

My field work began right away. I was sampling two rivers, and it was tiring work. We had to wake up during the wee hours of the morning and struggle our way through the brush in order to reach the rivers. Then we set up our equipment and took several water samples for analysis. It was dangerous at times, we even suffered an iguana attack in the middle of a deep pool. It just flew out of the brush and ran straight for us! We survived that and many, many hours of scorching hot sunlight on our backs and necks, which eventually led to a very interesting project.

Aside from work, my roomates (4 other girls) were very nice people. We all came from different parts of the US, and one of them was a native of the island. We took several large group trips to see more of Puerto Rico. We visited the Guanica dry forest, which was at the other end of the island, we visited the city of Old San Juan, which used to be a Spanish fort town in the past. Everything was beautiful and the food was delicious! I think I made some pretty amazing bonds with the other interns that I would have missed out on if I had not taken this oportunity. I was so impressed with my experience at the UPR, that I even started to consider doing my PhD over there.

Finally, after all the field work was done, we had a little trouble with the analysis because machines didn't want to work, and some tests were not sensitive enough, but eventually we got it all done. At the end, I gave a short oral presentation about the project to the rest of the interns and mentors. It was very rewarding because I was complimented on my work.

I thought this was one of the best experiences I've had because I got to live in a setting completely different than LA. I was in the middle of the rainforest, listening to frogs croaking at night and rainfall. It was a beautiful, spiritual experience as well as a priceless learning experience. I recommend to everyone that an internship in another country will be a rewarding and life-altering decision. I hope you all had fun this summer too and I can't wait to see you this quarter!

paola castro SPUR 2008

I'd like to tell you a grasp of my summer experience. This summer 2008 turned out better than I expected.Not only did I get to work in a lab full time. I also got to attend my first scientific conference, thanks to the MARC program, I have a better understanding of what it is like to work in a team, and grew as a person. The scientific conference I attended took place in Wisconsin. The lab I became part of this summer studies aging. Shilpi, my graduate student mentor, and I study aging in the Caenorhabditis elegans model. The all the research presented at the conference I attended was concentrated on this worm. As a result, the conference was a great opportunity to get to know my model even better! Furthermore, Shilpi and I got to meet other researchers that pursue similar studies to our own from other universities.

This summer I got to start on a project that I will continue on fall quarter and that I will get to tell you all about when we get together just before the start of this fall quarter. The main purpose of the project is to investigate the effects that Vitamin C has on the longevity of the C. elegans. Almost all plants synthesize Vitamin C. Our lab is currently investigating whether the worm makes this important antioxidant. The inconclusive results suggest that the worm does not synthesize it. If in fact, the worm doesnt synthesize it, it would be interesting because humans are on of the few vertebrates that do not synthesize vitamin C and must obtain it by dietary intake. I hope to obtain more results this fall quarter and share them with you all!

I hope everyone had a great summer!!
I've attached some pictures. One of me and my poster and the other of cheese hats for sell at the Wisconsin airport.

sincerely,

Paola

Erin Jimenez and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Being an “URP” at CSHL was an extraordinary and unique opportunity. I had the pleasure to work in Dr. Dave Jackson’s laboratory under the guidance of Dr. Robyn Johnston to investigate phyllotaxy, the specific geometric arrangement of leaves and flowers around the plant stem. I investigated maize mutants with altered phyllotaxy to better understand the mechanisms controlling leaf initiation. Working in Dr. Dave Jackson’s laboratory challenged me to think about the scientific process in a very different perspective. For the past year I have studied mitochondrial protein import in yeast at UCLA. Coming from a lab using a different model system and different techniques, I was thrown out of my element. I had to learn and master techniques I never used before quickly. I immersed myself into my project desiring to learn every aspect of it. From the very beginning, my post-doc gave me the independence to make her project my own. Finding myself like a real scientist, I designed elegant experiments to find the answers to my questions. Working in a plant biology lab was extremely challenging and at times frustrating. CSHL and Dr. Dave Jackson challenged me to become more self-reliant and assimilate the knowledge my project demanded in a short amount of time.
I had the opportunity to meet other passionate student researchers from different universities around the world and discuss what it was like to be a young scientist. We gathered weekly to hear faculty discuss their research and had the opportunity to exchange ideas. Our weekly meetings refined my public speaking skills and challenged my intellectual development as a critical thinker.

In addition to gaining new insights in the laboratory, the summer was filled with activities from dinner with the infamous Jim Watson to kayaking around the harbor. I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with the URPs. The URPs made my summer extra memorable and I miss them tremendously. I will never forget all the laughs we shared, venting, and even volleyball.

Summer Wrap Up

Hi Everyone,

I hope you all had a enjoyable and productive summer where ever you went. I stayed at UCLA, as mentioned in my previous post, and I had a great time and got lots of work done. I will pick up from where i left off last time in my previous post.

My work on T. brucei focuses on understanding the regulation of flagellar motility. Briefly, my goals were to identify components of the dynein regulatory complex using a relatively new crosslinking method and also to identify post translational modification and protein differences in regulatory mutants. Unfortunately the work with in vivo crosslinking has been so far unsuccessful and may not work at all if the trypanosomes do not recognize the photo-amino acids as such. It appears that the trypanosomes do not grow in the presence of these photo-amino acids but they still may be taking them up. I am running one last test; hopefully it works! If not I will try some different DRC solubalizing methods to see if I can make regular IPs more successful.
My other project is progressing nicely. I recently received mass spec results on our flagellum isolation preparation and have spent the past couple days pouring over the data, trying to organize it and make it presentable. We have had the help of Dr. Wohlschlegel here at UCLA with this project and he and his lab have really done an excellent job! The preparation contains 951 proteins so I have my work cut out for me. Once we analyze it I will probably begin looking at uncharacterized proteins which are likely to be flagellar and target them with RNAi and tag them for localization experiments. I have a lot of work ahead for me in the Hill lab and I am very excited to keep going.

I look forward to meeting you all soon as well

Jason Melehani

Overview of Summer Research

Finally, I get to see Melinda work in the clean and pristine Mugu Lagoon ;)

Although my work is on the micro-scale, my lab is pretty interesting to be around. During the summer, I worked closely with Emilio (my lab mentor) on his quest to obtain a Ph.D.
I guess I should recap what we actually aimed to accomplish. Most organisms have a sophisticated regulatory system for the sensing and subsequent absorption of iron. Loads of people, especially rich Europeans (iron disorders pretty common for them), are interested in understanding more about the iron-sensing mechanism, and how it is regulated. Presently, only in vivo (mouse) models exist. So our task is to recreate an in vitro (human cell line) model for the iron-dependent regulation of hepcidin (hepcidin is the regulator of iron absorption). Although that was my main objective, I was able to learn lots of other stuff along the way, as well as help my mentor with other experiments, and learn lots about other members' stuff in lab. Anyhoo, during the beginning few weeks, as I was getting acquainted with the experiments and stuff, we got results, and I was like, "Sweet! I am getting great results!" My mentor, Emilio, and my faculty mentor Dr. Ganz, were always less enthused. I wondered why, but I slowly began to realize the results from one single experiment are not enough to convince the scientific community, so you have to be a skeptic about your own experiments. This lesson, for me had a lot more significance than face value, I guess. I became more concscious of the histoy involved in each experiment (previous results and stuff), and what's more, I found it a lot easier to think of experiments as I was performing them. It's weird, because I actually want to know the answer to a question that no one knows the answer to, but I don't mind finding out for myself--I actually enjoy it :)
I digress. Aside from lab work, I really got to know my lab mates quite well, as every week, we did something together, like a walk through the gardens, visiting the new lab (it's friggin' crazy, like "Saw" looking, but new and clean, haha), and parties where we (at least everyone else) brought homemade food. My faculty mentor, Tom Ganz, is an extremely busy guy-- running his own biomed science business, the new lab, and going out of the country to give speeches-- but almost every day he was at the lab, he would stop in to ask how I was doing, and made me feel so part of the lab. Emilio and I are really great friends now, and I seriously cannot wait to get back to UCLA!
Left: Me Right: Emilio

Melinda's Summer in the Fong Lab

Hello Everyone!

I'm Melinda, a first year MARC trainee, third-year Biology major.
This summer’s research has gone by so quickly!!! I am in Dr. Peggy Fong’s lab in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. I got the opportunity to help with several projects ranging in topics from nitrogen-fixation/denitrification, the effects of algae on food web, to upper marsh vegetation and alternative stable states. I worked primarily with Sarah Bryson, who is looking to show salt marsh vegetation and salt pannes are alternative stable states. I also helped out Lauri Green with field work in the mud flats. I have been out in the field at least once a week starting the first week of the summer program. The field site is Mugu Lagoon, located in Ventura County Naval Weapons Air Base. Both the research with the salt pannes and research in the mud flats are conducted in different areas of the lagoon. I must say, this field site is AMAZINGLY beautiful. The favorite part of my summer, and perhaps the most tiring, was collecting samples from the field.

Collecting mud cores for chlorophyll analysis.
I know it looks like we are trying to catch something in the water, but unfortunately we are approaching a dead brown smooth-hound shark.
Another undergrad and I trying to smile for the camera, but that shark was quite heavy. This is also seconds before the guts fell out onto our pants!
A slightly better view of the shark.

A far more flattering picture of me at the SPUR Poster Session.

I hope everyone enjoys the last few days of summer!!!

-Melinda Hernandez