Just to start off with some context, my name’s Vidita, and I’m spending the summer working at the Huang lab. Dr. Huang’s lab works on ovarian cancer cell research. My specific project relates to testing the chemosensitivity of cancer cells when they are in aged fat precursor cells vs when they are in young fat precursor cells, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Since this is my first time working in this lab, or any lab at all, I’ve mainly spent the past week learning the basics. I’ve basically been shadowing my mentor, Lila, as she does her own project and learning from what she’s doing. She’s shown me how to prepare new cell medium, change the medium for a cell culture, trypsinize cell cultures, count cells in culture, and more. Yesterday, I got to trypsinize a cell culture for the first time. Trypsinization is essentially the process of releasing cancer cells from the bottom of the flask that they’re growing on so that they can be frozen down for later use. In all honesty, the process was pretty stressful because since we’re working with cancer cells, they need to stay in a sterile environment. This means making sure everything stays in the hood and having to be incredibly careful about not touching your pipets or tools to the wrong parts of the cell culture flasks. Luckily, my first attempt at trypsinization was a success. I’m really looking forward to getting more familiar and comfortable with these procedures.
This is going to sound pretty trite, but I’m just expecting to learn and experience science in a way that I hadn’t before, by working in this lab. I can’t wait to learn new scientific techniques. I’m excited to work through whatever setbacks may come my way. I’m just interested to see where this experience leads me. I’ve always been interested in reproductive health and healthcare, but I’m not interested in being a clinician. I’m hoping that this experience in a reproductive health lab will help me figure out whether or not I could see myself doing more work like this in the future. I expect to learn more about this side of reproductive health that I hadn’t investigated before. I want to learn more about the various types of tumor cell lines that I’m making and the different chemotherapies they’re using. I’m hoping to get better at reading dense scientific papers. I just want to take advantage of all the experiences this summer throws at me.
