Overall, this project has taught me a lot. I have learned not only about the specifics of dealing with cell culture, but also about how a lab works in general. I have come across many things that have taken practice to get comfortable with. One of the most stressful things I have had to deal with in this project is dealing with two different cell lines at once. It is very important to avoid cross contamination between the two lines, so it takes a lot of attention when dealing with both at the same time.
My project has been going fairly well so far. We have had little to no trouble with the differentiation process. That is, until this past week. We were attempting to go through the process in a greater surface area than we had before, as this would allow us to culture more cells. As usually happens when trying something new, we hit a snag in middle. The cells became over confluent on day 5 out of 6 of the differentiation protocol and so we fixed them in PFA—so that we could salvage something out of this run of the protocol—and started over by culturing iPSCs. This set us back a bit in acquiring data about the differentiation process. However, this was one of the only set backs we have had. So, all in all, the project has been quite successful. My mentor was actually quite excited that I had finally failed at the protocol, as it is the best way to learn and grow.
