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Kylie Heering, Weeks 5-8

Time really flew by! I'm wrapping up my work here in the lab. I'll miss everything about this summer so much--even washing and rinsing my membrane six times before imaging! These past few weeks have been very productive. I've worked on a lot of Western blots, gave more presentations at our lab meetings, and presented my final poster alongside Blake. Its been super busy and exciting, its sad that it has to come to an end.

I'll include some random bits and pieces from recently:

Preston took me to image some organoids on the microscope. The pictures are really cool. Its interesting to see the diversity of organoids from cells of the same sort. Basal and luminal-derived organoids have different morphologies as well, which is pretty awesome. Its amazing how these three dimensional tissue models can retain their identities in culture like this.
Luminal-derived organoid

I also learned how to quantify my Western blot data. The images obtained from performing Western blots are a qualitative analysis of protein level expression, so its advantageous to give the results a numerical identity. To do this, I used the program ImageJ.

I usually do chemiluminescent detection, but I did fluorescent detection for the first time!

Also, a project that I've found pretty fascinating tests if a drug is reversible. If so, it could lead to experiments regarding oncogene transduction because it maintains the phenotype of organoid culture during lentiviral infection.

I've been studying global methylation and its role in prostate epithelial cell differentiation.

I'm currently trying to hone a PNGase protocol to deglycolsylate proteins.

I'm learning a ton about metabolism, the mechanisms behind cancer, and everything in general (Thanks to Preston's napkin notes!)

My poster session went really well! I presented a collection of my research in characterizing mouse prostate epithelial cell-derived organoids to my lab. I even had the privilege of presenting my work to the head of UCLA's biomedical research minor. With my love for research reinforced by my summer EXP experience, I would be overjoyed to have the privilege to participate in that program if given the opportunity to attend UCLA! I got to watch Blake present her poster as well. Its awesome to see how much we both accomplished this summer.




While the best part of my summer is happening inside the lab, I've had a pretty exciting time outside of UCLA. These past few weeks I've explored a lot of California state.

Rohit and Alan came down to LA one weekend, so we did a two-day tour of LA. Even though I'd like to think I'm an LA local by now, my touristy-side came out when we went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Santa Monica Pier.

The next weekend I went up to San Francisco. I got to see a little bit Berkeley and Stanford--different campuses but both are very nice. I saw Michelle, Abby, and even KJ (which was amusingly unplanned). Rohit and Alan took me to the top spots to see in San Francisco. I finally got to see the Golden Gate Bridge, which has been on my bucket list for quite some time! And we went to Fisherman's Wharf. Boats are cool, I guess.


This last weekend Preston, Hector, Blake and I went down to San Diego. Preston and his friend tried to teach me how to surf (I stood up on the board--success!)


I visited the Hammer, an art museum here in Westwood with some of my friends.
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