Week 5

This week, we had the privilege of learning about everyone’s projects through chalk talks: short whiteboard presentations. It was really interesting to learn about the wide variety of projects that BSURF fellows are conducting this summer.  One such project was...

So far, my summer has been exciting. I've learned so many new things and have gotten he opportunity to talk/listen to so many amazing people. I cannot wait to see how everything turns out over these last few weeks. Daily...

Like I have mentioned in my previous blog posts, my experiment is based around seeing what genes effect sexual behavior in the brains of flies. Depending on what gene (fruitless, doublesex 1 or 2, or ChAT) and what epigenetic marker...

With a full day of benchwork planned, I try and wake up at 5 am, but the nauseating breach of sunlight through the blinds often send me back under the covers for another 5 minutes. Or maybe 50. Given the...

Although every day in the lab is slightly different, there are some constants that exist. I usually get to lab and do germination checks for about two hours in the morning. I have my petri dishes where we put down...

When I first walk into lab, I check my email to see if there are any updates from my mentor on my project. Then I prepare PCR to test the primers for Shank1 and Dlg4, as I am finding that...

I usually get to the lab quite early, in order to get a head start on my experiments before going to the usual BSURF meeting. Many of the experiments we run, such as Western Blots and RT-PCRs, require a lot...

In my lab, not every day is the same. Depending on what is going on with our project, some days may be busy days, and some days may be "waiting" days, when we are waiting for our experiments to run....

For me in the Wray lab, everyday is pretty close to the same (so long as there are sea urchins in stock). As soon as I get to the lab, I check on the sea urchins I injected the day...

As I mentioned in my past post about my project, I am determining the thyroid concentration in fecal samples of a wild population of male baboons using T3 radioimmunoassay (RIA). First, here’s a bit more information about how RIAs work:...

For me, there are things that I do on a daily basis, but there are also things that I do that depend on how a previous day's work turned out. Most days, I arrive at the lab I check in...

Through the past couple of weeks my routine in lab has kind of been all over the place. Depending on the goal for the day, I alternate between the third, fourth, and ultimately the fifth floor (where my lab is...

I really enjoyed all of the chalk talks from last week. To be frank I felt a little proud of everyone because from what I could understand everyone had fairly complicated subjects and projects. To see that everyone could effectively...

So far through this summer, I have discovered that the stereotypic perception of the routines of a researcher is mostly false. Each day there is usually a new challenge, concept, or method to try, creating an experience very much different...

I normally start my day at the lab habituating mice to a head-fixation device connected to a treadmill. Mice that are considered habituated will groom and run (and sometimes vocalize a little bit spontaneously) instead of displaying freezing behavior. Before...

A normal day in the lab usually begins with checking on my 293T cell lines to see if they are confluent enough to passage to a new plate. If the cells are 80-90% confluent, then I will thaw my media...