Author Archives: Natalia Bojorquez

Having so many brilliant people come and talk to us about their current research, career paths, and anything in between has been an amazing part of the BSURF program. Although they were all very interesting and valuable in many ways, the talk that I have chosen to reflect upon because of its level of interest to me is Dr. Robert J. Lefkowitz’s talk. His presentation titled “A Tale of Two Callings: Physician vs Scientist,” encompassed how he went from solely being interested in being a physician after having graduated from Columbia University to how he got involved in research and went on to win a Nobel Prize. The event that made him get involved in research was actually the Vietnam War, which he did not want to be a part of and instead became a part a large group of physicians that received training in research from the NIH. He said that although he did not like the feeling of failing so frequently in the lab with projects and experiments, it kept him interested and enthusiastic especially since he said he excelled at most other things in his life that he set his mind on. Even though I know this is one of the most frustrating parts of research, I must agree with Dr. Lefkowitz that it’s exciting because it keeps you on your toes and makes you be more creative to figure out how to address the problem you are working on.

Right now, I am at a crossroads in terms of whether I want to pursue al MD or an MD, PhD because I aspire to one day be a physician, but I have started culminating this love of research as well. With its endless possibilities in terms of what there is to explore, discover, and improve in the world, it makes the perfect environment for someone who always craves to learn more as I know that I do. In any case, the biggest piece of advice that I am left with after Dr. Lefkowitz’s talk is to eat 70% or greater dark chocolate of any brand—he currently buys the brand Chocolove—just in case I decide I want to earn a Nobel Prize in the future just as he did.

PI: Ru-Rong Ji, PhD; Department of Anesthesiology

Mentors: Aidan McGinnis, Yul Huh

Pain is good when it is short term but is a problem and serves no real purpose once it becomes long term or chronic. A form of chronic pain is neuropathy, or nerve damage, which has no cure nor effective treatment. To develop novel treatments for neuropathy, previous experiments involving a cytokine of interest showed strong pain relief in male mice but not in females. This is a big issue in medicine because studies have been done predominantly in male animals as scientists were not fully aware of sex differences within how the sensory system operates. Previously, experimental data showed that said cytokine’s receptor 1 is more expressed in male sensory neurons—also known as dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons—than in female DRG neurons. Currently, immunohistochemistry (IHC) has been used to identify and quantify the cytokine’s receptor 2 in male and female DRG and have showed no sexual dimorphism in expression level. The next step is to identify and quantify the cytokine’s receptor 3 in male and female DRG and potentially in spinal cords as well to identify the means by which the cytokine of interest alleviates neuropathic pain in males but not in females to then potentially create effective nerve pain treatments for both sexes in humans.

Technically spelled DANNCE for 3-Dimensional Aligned Neural Network for Computational Ethology, I found Shivam’s presentation on his work this summer very interesting. This DANNCE contraption is essentially a special box that his lab has been developing to better track mice’s movements during behavior tests. It is a more accurate way to quantify their behavior rather than relying solely on human judgement since it uses machine learning to make visual diagrams of the mice while running the tests. Even though Shivam mentioned that it had been developed to observe mouse behaviors associated with Parkinson’s disease—which is what his lab is studying—when testing them after receiving a dose of a certain drug, I thought it was relevant to my own research at the Ji lab since we do a lot of our own types of behavior tests on mice. Maybe this box could also be a valuable addition in our lab later down the line and I know it would definitely be of great use for many other labs doing similar work. 

For me, it’s kind of hard to write about a day in my life at the lab because of how varied the days have been from the very beginning. However, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s kept every day looking more like an adventure with many things to learn from rather than getting monotonous and boring. Typically, I do go in at the same time—10:45 a.m., after our BSURF meetings in the mornings on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays—except on Mondays when I go in until after lunch because we have lab meetings from 9 to 11 (ish) and Fridays when I go in at around 10 am. Going into MSRB III in the morning, all the way up to the 6th floor  has become my favorite thing, especially getting to my little desk area within the lab that has an amazing view of the Duke Chapel. Usually at least one of my two mentors will be there already, so I greet them as I set up my area with my computer and notebook.  

Since we just recently solidified the plans for what my project for the summer would consist of, we’ve been going through the steps that we have planned out and seeing which would be the best to perform next or continue whatever was not finished the previous day. Lately this has included lots of immunohistochemistry to stain mouse DRG’s for analysis under a microscope and this past Friday and Saturday I learned how to do RNAscope as well for this project. Both are relatively long procedures that involve lots of waiting time between steps in the protocol, so I have been making use of that time by reading. It had been a long time since I was able to do that peacefully because of how packed my days are usually during the school year so I’m very much making the most out of it. At some point in time, usually between 12:30 and 1:30, I take a little lunch break where I appreciate having some time to spend with other lab members since everyone is usually very engrossed in their own work all day. Afterwards once I am done with whatever I had planned to do for the day I check with my mentors one last time if there is anything else they want me to do, observe, or help themA day in my life at the Ji lab  with before heading out, which has usually been between 5 and 6:30 depending on the day. Although some days I come out more tired than others, I am always eager to go back the next day for more activities within the Ji Lab.  

You know how a lot of the times when you look at someone very successful you imagine that they must have always known what they wanted to do, had a detailed plan of how they were going to do it, and simply did it. Well recently I have been realizing that in reality, this isn’t how the narrative goes, and I was able to see this yet again through mi PI’s story. Dr. Ru-Rong Ji never initially imagined there was a possibility of him going to college. Being from China in a time where there was a lot of political turmoil, he says it was not part of his foreseeable future until Deng Xiaoping opened the country to the rest of the world and the US said that they would allow half a million Chinese students to come study in the states. Dr. Ji earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in China and did research on acupuncture analgesia with a professor in acupuncture for 2 years. This marked the beginning of his interest in pain and neuroscience research, which later led him to get his Ph.D. in neuroscience in Shanghai. Continuing his academic career, Dr. Ji went to Johns Hopkins as a Neuroscience fellow in the school of medicine for 3 years, spent 2 years in Stockholm studying gene regeneration in animal models, and then went to Harvard Medical school which he considers was a turning point in his career as he took on the role of Instructor and got his first NIH funding. After a total of 14 years there he came to Duke, has been here for 10 years, and is currently the chief of pain research. 

Despite not initially picturing his future to evolve into what it has, it is what he now considers to be his dream job. One of the things he enjoys most about it is the new discoveries you can make when doing research, always new and exciting projects, and how creative the job requires you to be. Not to mention the amount of traveling he has been able to do as part of business trips and the like. He says you get to see the world and often be shown around the area by colleagues. Although working in the lab can involve many hours per week, he also enjoys the flexibility that also comes with it.  

It has been so wonderful seeing how much his research means to him and his dedication towards it. From what I can tell, Dr. Ji is also always attentive to the people in his lab and comes in to check on things in the bench lab area at least once a day. A healthy lifestyle and good mentality are things he considers have helped him also get where he is today and says that he sees himself continuing with his research for many more years to come. With this in mind, there are a few key things he considers critically important for being successful which include having a good attitude, being patient, and being persistent. These are things I will keep in mind as I embark on my own career journey and use Dr. Ru-Rong Ji as an exceptional role model in the field that I am profoundly interested in.

Second week of BSURF done and honestly, I am not 100% sure what it is that my summer project consists of yet. I know the general gist of what it is and the purpose of doing it so here goes my little elevator speech about it: Our goal is to study a protein that has been found to alleviate neuropathy induced pain when administered in animal models more in depth. Neuropathy refers to nerve damage usually caused by disease or injury. Chronic nerve pain is a problem because common medicine like Ibuprofen, Advil, or even opioids are not effective in this case as they work in a different manner that does not target the root problems of nerve pain. 

Immunohistochemistry (IHC) will be used extensively in order to visualize our protein of interest’s receptors within DRG neurons. To do this, the slide with the tissues of interest is prepared with a washing buffer first, then stained with a primary antibody which is what binds to the receptor of interest. The slides are left in the cold room overnight and the following day they are again stained with a secondary antibody which binds to the primary antibody that was previously added. It is this secondary antibody that becomes fluorescent under the microscope and allows us to see if and where our receptors of interest are in the samples we are looking at. 

This will be done with the hopes of better understanding how our protein of interest works when said protein is administered to an organism and alleviates pain to determine if it could potentially be applied the same way in humans. In preparation to carry out this project, I have been receiving training in the proper handling of the animals in our lab, how to do behavior tests, prepare slides with tissue samples, and learning how to do the IHC protocol needed. I’m very excited to see how this project evolves and see the data we collect in the following weeks.

I definitely felt I needed to include the location of my lab in the title of this first blog post to illustrate the amazing view I have of the Duke Chapel from the space I work in inside the lab area (not to brag:) ).

Long story short, I have very high hopes for the next 7 weeks. Even in these past few days that I have been settling in, I already feel I have done and learned a lot. My two mentors have been very patient with me as I start to learn the ins and outs of the lab and have entrusted me to do a few complicated tasks that I never imagined myself doing in this first week. This is why I expect to gain a large skill set during my time in Dr. Ru-Rong Ji’s lab. Most importantly, I want to contribute as much as possible to the lab and their overall goal in pain research. 

Outside of the lab, however, I do expect to have fun and get to know the Durham area better alongside the new friends that I have made. Making genuine and meaningful connections with colleagues and peers this summer is very important to me to make it a much more fulfilling experience. In any case, I plan to maintain a positive mindset and view it all as a great opportunity to grow as a person