Peddie EXP Summer 2018

We started off our week with a congratulatory acai bowl trip to celebrate Preston’s acceptance into a training grant program. Acai bowls in California top Playa Bowls (no question about it). From what I can tell, its a pretty huge honor to be recognized by this grant, but he’s really humble about it. On Monday, Preston and I decided that testing antibodies that have never been tested on prostate epithelial cells before would be a good objective for my first Western blot on my own. We needed to probe for ASCT2, a glutamine transporter, and GLS in order to determine if their corresponding antibodies are functional. Antibodies are crucial for Western blots because they bind to the protein of interest (POI), allowing for us to qualify its expression after imaging. As such, Preston wanted to make sure they worked by probing for ASCT2 and GLS on three different cell lines. Cell lines are commercially purchased human cells that have been immortalized (modified to grow indefinitely) by telome...

I’m about to wrap up my first week in the lab and I learned that Californians do in fact use the word “gnarly” as much as one would think. The graduate student's paper! View from the lab My lab is located on the UCLA campus right next to Westwood, which is a great spot to grab food or go shopping (basically I’m in my happy place). And everything here in Los Angeles is vegan! Even my PI! I was a little bit worried that I’d be living off Clif Bars for lunch, but the students in my lab are so welcoming and friendly that I have been blowing through my allowance easily by going out to eat almost twice a day, everyday so far. I feel so at home in my lab--the people are amazing, the location is great (and sunny), and the science is incredible. Before starting my internship I was a little concerned that I would be placed in a corner to pipette from 9-5, but I got more than I could ever hope for. The graduate student whom I am shadowing, Preston, explains everything in so...