After being out of the country for
nearly three months I am sitting In the Sydney Airport ready to board my flight
back to the US. I still can not believe what an amazing experience I had and
how welcoming my lab was. I was able to help out with amazing projects that I
would never have had the change to be a part of without EXP. I learned what
types marine biology I do and don’t enjoy, and I got to see what it was like to
work as a researcher in a laboratory setting.
I am so grateful for this opportunity and I can’t wait to share my
experience with the Peddie community.
As mentioned in my previous blog, I have been awaiting ligament, menisci, and cartilage tissue from a canine or human knee joint for (interleukin) IL-1B tissue culture. IL-1B is an inflammatory cytokine that has been proven to increase rates of tissue degeneration and osteoarthritis development in the Thompson Lab. Dr. Stoker wants me to experiment with different types of knee tissues in a co-culture with varying levels of this cytokine to determine its effects on the entire knee joint. This co-culture uses an insert permeable to the media to separate the two tissue samples from physical contact, while allowing them to share the same media. This creates an extremely accurate model for knee tissues in their native environment due to their exposure to the same synovial fluid in the joint. This model would then be treated with the IL-1B and cultured for 21 days. During these 21 days, the media would be collected every three days for biomarker evaluation at the end of the stu...
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