Peddie EXP Summer 2018

It has been exactly a month after the experience at UCLA. Looking back, even though, at first, I didn't really know if I was going to be a big help to the lab. However, looking back, I have accomplished so much more than I expected. I finished the project that my PI provided me and I went beyond that and I helped other projects too. As a future chemistry major in college, I believe that this experience was one of a kind and it was a big leap forward in my life. Thank you for this experience.

Today is my last day in the lab. This experience has been one-of-a-kind. On Tuesday, I took pictures of my transfected cells so I could count them and determine if there was a difference between my conditions. I will spend the rest of the day looking at the pictures of my cells, and this is the data I will present when school starts again. I am really going to miss being here everyday. This summer, there were a lot of interns, including two girls from France, so there was always someone to talk to (and I wasn’t the only confused person in the room). I became really close with the grad student I was following around, and am determined to keep in touch with her. I want to thank the Bouchard Lab for all they have taught me. Ala Viva!

During Week 5, I worked on connecting the two equipments: the hydra harp and the stages. The hydra harp is the equipment that counts the photons when the sample is excited, and the stages is a moving microscope that examines the sample. Therefore, in my code, I inputted the movement of the stages, which is 3 dimensional, then I allowed it to count photons while it moves to different locations. Dr. Peretz visited me this week, and it was really nice for me to show her what I’ve been doing so far and how the lab environment is. I can’t believe 5 weeks have already passed and I only have one more week.

The past few weeks in the lab were really fun. About 2 weeks ago, the lab welcomed 3 more summer students, which was nice because I wasn’t the newest one around anymore. It was cool to both be learning from my grad students and to be teaching the new student things, even if they were small. I started to truly enjoy coming to work everyday, not only because of the science, but because my lab became a little community and I was a part of it. Lab members weren’t just lab members— they were friends now too. I am really going to miss being here. One issue I faced was not knowing when I would start my project. As time went on, my project kept changing so that it would be something I could complete in my remaining time. I am currently working on determining if there is a difference in the localization of AKT (a protein kinase that has many functions in the cell) if the presence of HBV. To do this, I will be transfecting cells under different conditions, and then counting cells to see whe...

Week 3 and Week 4 After somewhat settling down in the new lab, the first couple of days were more of getting the finishing touches on the new lab. I helped the graduate students to get all the machines working such as the laser. After doing mostly basic stuff for the first two weeks, I actually started to work on my project for the summer, which is the program a machine that connects the laser and the laser platform, which moves around, to collect data from the samples. Through week 3 and week 4, I mostly went in and out on this project. I did a lot of coding, but I also helped other graduate students with their own projects. For instance, I helped Anu, a graduate student in my lab, collecting graphs and peaks of samples using spectroscopy. While doing this, we had to use liquid nitrogen in the process. Therefore, we played around with liquid nitrogen. I also helped other graduate students collecting data. We also had a lot of fun. Since I am a really big soccer fan and I ha...

During my third week in the lab, I got the chance to do some work instead of just learning techniques. On Monday, I got to make the media for the HepG2 cells myself. This is media contains all the things the cells need in order to grow and proliferate for a few days. On Tuesday, both the grad students I follow were out sick. However, this was a problem because Danyelle, one of the students, needed to be in the lab to finish her western blot. This left Dara, a masters student, and I to finish it for her. Although it wasn’t a lot of work, Danyelle believed we were capable enough to finish her work for her. Later in the week, I started to do more and more things by myself. I got to run my own western blot (just with old samples), and I was excited to see that it worked (mostly). I also got to do a transfection with two plasmids, which also worked well. I’ve learned so much in my 3 weeks here, and I can’t wait for 3 more. Western Blot GFP transfection after 3 days

Week 2 Week two was mostly about moving to the new lab and helping people set up their equipment. Even though I did some coding here and there, I learned a lot about lab equipment, lab safety, and just the lab in general. I had to be really careful with some equipment because some of them are worth 250000, which is pretty crazy. My PI told me that I will probably start taking data from there after we are done with setting up the whole lab. I got to know that the area is really nice: found some good places to eat, things to do when I am bored, and so on. Even though I only have 4 weeks left, I feel like I’ve already learned a lot and I will learn even more for the next 4 weeks. This experience has already been really valuable.

My second week in the lab has been great. On Tuesday, I talked with Dr. Bouchard, my PI, as well as as my two grad students and another student about our projects. I will be looking at AKT-GFP and how it affects mTORC, and therefore how it effects the replication of HBV. In order to do this, I need the new HepG2 cells (cancerous liver cells). While I wait for those to be cultured, I spend my time observing what other lab members are doing. At the end of the week, I observed Danyelle, one of the grad students I’m shadowing, do a western and native blot. A western blot detects denatured proteins, whereas a native keeps the proteins intact. At the end of the day Friday, we checked to see if we could detect proteins on both the membranes from the blots. The native worked but the western didn’t, so Danyelle had to redo the western over the weekend. Also during the week, I got to watch how cells are frozen down. This is useful because certain cells grow really fast, and it isn’t always nece...

My first few days in the lab were really great. Since I didn’t move into my apartment until June 1, I commuted the first few days. In the morning, my dad would drop me off at my lab, and after work I would come home on a train. I enjoyed commuting for those few days from Philadelphia to Princeton because it forced me to take charge. On my first day, the first thing I did was watch two of the graduate students remove the liver from a rat. This is because they needed primary hepatocytes (type of liver cell) in order to study HBV, which lives in liver cells. Throughout the rest of the week, I spent my time watching what the other graduate students were doing and learning more about their projects. I also observed many processes that I would also need to learn how to do, like splitting cells, collagen-coating plates, and also got to do a small transfection lab with Andrea, one of the two grad students I’m working with. I look forward to learning more from them and starting my own proj...

First day at the lab wasn’t the best. I somehow walked into 5 different buildings between 8 and 8:30 when I had to be there by 8:30. I asked about 5 different people where Dr. Caram’s office is and I finally found his office around 8:40, which was 10 minutes late. I explained to him how I had a hard time finding it and he said it was fine. Dr. Caram was really nice and enthusiastic about everything. After giving me a basic tour around the lab, it was around 9 and he said he needs to go teach a class. So he basically left me in the lab space with nothing and I was just alone. Other people started to show up around 9:30. I tried to talk to a lot of them. Our group consists of 8 people. Tim, the graduate student that I have to shadow or the student that will give me the most help with, helped me download Labview, the coding program used here, on my computer. Even though I did some tutorials before I came here, I still didn’t know how to do 99.9% of the things on here. My graduate student...