Ivan Flores Blog 2

Research has been going well so far. I am continuing to trouble shoot my cell culturing experiments by collecting cells on coverslips at different time points to be assayed for differentiation. At the same time, I have also begun to study the effect that IL-10 has on the transcription factor MyoD on quadricep muscle in vivo. This approach comes from qPCR data showing that MyoD is upregulated in IL-10 treated mice. Hopefully, everything goes well and the data I collect shows positive results. Other than research, I am still studying for the GRE and become more inspired to be accepted to graduate school. The mentoring on personal statement writing and advice that is given at the seminars greatly help with planning for graduate school early on. 

Brian Perez Blog 2

Just hanging out by one of the many
Stanford fountains

It is now the start of the fourth week of the Stanford Summer Research Program and I have now ordered everything I need in order to conduct quantitative PCR which will give my project on cardioprotection new data to analyze. I have also taught a high school student to conduct CPK assays which I think was a good teaching experience for me. I am still working on mastering the western blot techniques so that I can then obtain more data for my project. By the end of the week I will attend this year’s Amgen Scholars U.S. Symposium held at UCLA! I will be coming back home for the weekend, so I will have a chance to hello to some friends of mine.

This last weekend I also celebrated my birthday. I was fortunate enough that my family came to visit me all the way from Riverside. It was great to see my family again. We spent the day touring Stanford’s campus and then went to check out the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco.

  

At the Golden Gate Bridge!





On the 4th floor of Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge Building (LKSC)





 



Brian Perez Blog 1

At the Oval, Stanford Univ.

My new summer research experience at Stanford looks promising. The first few days it rained all day, not what I expected for summer weather. The general climate here is much cooler that Los Angeles which I totally love.   Do not want to be too hot over the summer. The first week was very busy, so many orientations and ice-breakers, but it was worth it. I feel much closer to my new roommates who I am sharing a house with. During the end of the first week, the Stanford Summer Research Program took us on a scavenger hunt in San Francisco. It was great! The next day many of us from the program went to attend the Pride Parade held on Sunday which was also lots of fun. I finally got to see the amazing city.


I feel like I am going to learn a lot from this summer in the lab doing research and also about improving my professional skills. I am working in a lab that works with proteins and making peptides for pharmaceutical purposes. My project specifically focuses on new drug discovery aimed at protecting heart tissue during a heart attack. I am also going to be learning many new techniques that I am not familiar with that are essential in almost every lab like Western blots and cell culturing techniques. I have also been giving the opportunity to set up protocols for new experiments that the lab does not do, so the experience will be interesting since no one here really knows what to expect.

Some of my new friends on a tour of Stanford Univ.

Hanging out at San Francisco by the ocean!

 

Richard Flores Blog 2

Oh science....this week made me think of a quote I was told by my up and coming scientist buddy Jamie, it goes: “Science-if your experiment works the first time around, you’re not doing it right.” That sums up my week. I spend an entire week writing and testing the protocol for my experiment, Novel Object Recognition. It has never been done by anyone in my lab so I’m in charge of figuring it out. I was careful to make sure I had everything perfect.

Finally, after a week of preparations, I did my first ‘real’ test  in which I would actually collect data. Of course, it did not go as planned. The camera was having difficulty tracking the mice, the mice were running around as if they had never seen the arena (completely ignoring the objects), and the software was switching around parameters at random. Thus, I’ve spent this week reviewing my protocol with a fine toothed comb. Even though I was very distraught at my failed experiment, I remain optimistic that when I re-test it on Saturday, everything will go according to plan!

Ivan Flores Blog 1

My summer research has had a great start. This summer I am staying in my regular lab, working on getting more data for my research. Currently, I am in the middle of trouble shooting a few techniques that will be necessary for me to complete the in vitro portions of my project. The trouble shooting has been fun so far, since I have had to learn new techniques. These techniques include culturing cells on cover slips as well as collecting cells for creating kinase assays. Apart from doing research, I have also started taking GRE preparation classes. The classes add a new and fun challenge to balancing my time this summer. I have met new friends in the class, making it more enticing to attend each class. Hopefully the summer will continue being as great as it is now. Obtaining good results and doing well on the GRE exam will make the work thus far worth it.

Walter Hardesty Blog 1

Hey everybody!

 

My name is Walter Hardesty and I am beginning my fourth-year as an MIMG major. I’m one of the new MARCers, and am excited for a productive summer of research in Dr. Kent Hill’s Lab who works with Trypanosoma brucei. For those of you who are curious, T. brucei is a unicellular, eukaryotic parasite that causes a devastating disease in humans called African Sleeping Sickness. My work has been centered on a protein called carbonic anhydrase and its role in social motility. I am investigating its role by performing social motility assays on carbonic anhydrase knockdown lines at different levels of carbon dioxide, and seeing what happens!

 

Here’s what the assay looks like for a plate inoculated with cells and incubated at atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide:



 

How cool is that! Anyway, that’s just a taste of the work I will be doing this summer in the Hill Lab. Besides lab work, I’m also having a great time working with the other graduate students and post docs. My mentor, Edwin Saada, is great. He always pays close attention to my work in the lab in an effort to guide me on my path. I can’t wait until he teaches me a new technique in the lab called immunofluorescence!

 

Dr. Kent Hill is also terrific! He’s in his office in the lab nearly 3-4 times a week, which is a whopping amount of time (compared to what I’ve heard about other P.I.’s). We have meetings once in a while where he provides me with direction in my project. All in all, his help and support are excessive, and it feels great to know that I am at the forefront of science, alongside one of the leading scientists in trypanosome biology!

 

Until next time, later guys!

Here’s me at the lab! Keepin’ it reallllllll.

 



Julio Silva Blog 1

Hi everyone!
 
My name is Julio Silva. I’m a Biochemistry major and I’ll be starting my senior year and my second year of MARC this coming fall at UCLA. Like other MARC-ers, I am also in Cambridge/Boston, MA under the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Exceptional Research Opportunities Program (EXROP).

 
This week will mark the fifth week of my summer experience and I must say that it has so far been scientific heaven! I am doing HIV research at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), MIT and Harvard. The institute is a collaborative partnership between these three institutions and does cutting edge HIV research with the goal of effectively eradicating the AIDS epidemic. I’m doing my research in Dr. Bruce Walker’s lab, director of the Ragon Institute. My project is on the role of miRNAs during acute HIV infection, particularly their role in causing large bystander CD4T-cell (the target white blood cell of HIV) depletion.  I’m learning a lot of cool techniques, like flow cytometry and many miRNA-based techniques and I’m working with fresh human tissue that is sent to us straight from MGH! My results have so far been promising and my experience in general is amazing! The collaboration between these institutions and from the people that work here is one of the things that make this place so great. It’s like a giant team effort that comes from several arms to reach an ultimately unifying goal. The type of work that gets done here, even my own work, could not get done so efficiently if this type of collaboration did not exist.  My direct mentor, Dr. Juan Cubillos, too has taught me so much within these four weeks and has given me an enormous amount of his time. I am very grateful to have him.

 

I’ve also had the opportunity to go on rounds with Dr. Walker at MGH and I was able to see some amazing cases and even rare diseases like Gorham’s disease, a vanishing bone disease.  He treated me like a med student and he taught me some valuable, essential information about what it means to be a doctor. His patients love him because he profoundly cares about them. He goes on several trips to South Africa as well every year and I casually mentioned my interest in going there perhaps for next summer…. We’ll see how this turns out :)

Well, time to get back to figuring out why I suddenly got an increased amount of CD4 T-cells nine days after infection compared to day 3…. I think I must have gated wrong the first time… :(

I’ll share more soon!

Julio