I truly enjoyed this week of Chalk Talks and being able to hear what everyone was doing this summer. It also was nice preparing for my chalk talk, talking to my mentor, and being able to gain a better understanding of what I was doing this summer. One of the talks that stood out to me this week was Tochi’s.
Tochi is working in the Abraham lab which is looking at host-pathogen interactions and how they relate to different diseases. The disease that Tochi is looking at is UTIs. What caught my attention from the beginning is the fact that UTIs majority affect women with about 80% of patients being women. I liked how during the presentation, Tochi drew and bladder and then zoomed into the bladder to show the exact region she was focusing on. Being also interested in Neuroscience, it was fascinating to learn that sensory neurons played a role in UTIs, the specific neuron being TRPV1 and something I had never heard about. Lastly, I found the methods of her research interesting with using Capsaicin treatment on the bladder of female mice at different time points. Her research design was also similar to mine in that the first aim is trying to figure out the optimal time in assaying a certain phenomenon and the second aim is to use that information to “dig deeper” into the research. Questions that I would have is how would the research translate to men since female mice are being used.
