Peddie EXP Summer 2018

(Disclaimer: this is a little random, but I wanted to put some of my thoughts down on paper (or computer I guess)) Dinosaurs. Their mysterious awe, their primordial existence, their electric lure. I was enchanted by them--almost mythical creatures--throughout my early childhood. The Allosaurus and Brachiosaurus replaced my quintessential girl fascination for dolls. The concept of what had existed before man striked me in a manner brushing Barbie’s hair never could. By kindergarten, I had the narration for dinosaur documentaries memorized, and in first grade I proudly presented my ostentatious collection of fossils to my class in “Show and Tell”...each week (my snowglobe collection didn’t draw as much interest). I spent my afternoons sifting through the forest floor for the imprint of an ancient plant on the face of a stone, deer bones, and arrowheads. This was my gateway to science. I wanted evidence of the past, but even more so, I craved discovery. Too naive to comprehend th...

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.

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 b...

These past two weeks have been amazing (and hectic)! My Time in the Lab: I am beyond grateful for everyone in my lab—they are all so helpful and it is truly a blessing to have so many great mentors! This first month in the lab has been an eye-opening experience for me on so many different levels. Immersing myself into the “real world” of science through research has not only confirmed my passion for cellular biology but has also furthered it. I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in exciting and ground-breaking cancer and metabolism research! In my third week, I gave my first lab presentation in front of Dr. Goldstein, Preston, Johnny, Blake, and Ana. I was a little nervous because I didn’t want to present any of Preston’s and my results incorrectly, but I felt that discussing our work with everyone made me more confident in my role in the lab and honed my presentation skills. Dr. Goldstein emphasizes the importance of being a strong presenter in researc...

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.

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...

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.

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...