I hope some of you still check this blog out!

Last Adventure

FELLOW INTERNS!!!!!

It seems that there is only one more day left before this program is officially over!!! (so sad... tears) So I'm thinking that we all need to do something before we all totally loose contact with one another when we go our separate ways. Although we have become an extremely tight knit family of simese nonuplet (like twins... only there are nine...), we will all get too busy or too preocupied by the never ending stress of life to hang out as a group ONE last time. (lol) I don't know what would be the most awesome thing to do, but I'm sure we can come to an agreement about something. I was thinking like Laser Tag at Funtasticks or what not. We can even go to the movies if you guys want to. We're getting Shrek 3 and Spiderman 3 this Friday and we have like tons of other movies too, but whatever. Ok, just leave some comments on what you guys think.

Posters

• Please be sure to check the instructions about the post I wrote on June 27

• Shiana and I have worked out some ideas for the titles.
  

• Combine the name of your research with the idea that this was a high school internship

• Example:
  
• Mutagenesis of Peroxiredoxin III to Determine its Function; A High School Internship

• Acknowledge the various people who have influenced your summer and note the aspect of the University that have supported you (you will have a different college -which will be a 3)

• Example:
  
• Shiana Ferng1-2, Ruiyu Xie2, Terrence J. Monks2, Serrine S. Lau2, Marti Lindsey2, Kevin Hall1
• BIO5 Institute1, Southwest Environmental Health Sciences (SWEHSC)2, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology2, College of Pharmacy2

• Financially the internship was provided by the:
• Outreach Core of the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center (NIEHS P30 6694) The HOPE Partnerhsip (NCRR RR018490), and the BIO5 Institute (K-12 Science Education Outreach Funds)
  

• I look forward to seeing the final version of your abstracts.

Marti

Andrew: Week 5

So I have not posted anything lately...it is a little awkward but I needed my time away from the computer haha. An update on the social events that happened recently. So, things with Mon-Ning and LBD are getting situated. By the way, they are engaged. All of us will attend that wedding just to let you know. Intern Survivor....week 6-7 are updated. So the final week is taking place. AAH!! This is my last week here in the lab...I am so sad to not be here next week (with the exception of journal club and poster presentation)! I have many active missions, but only one has been accomplished.
Here they are:

Mission Talk-to-LBD
Mission Friend Probation
Mission Social Butterflies (accomplished)

Anyway, at the lab, things are pretty routine. My other mentor Shawn is back from his honeymoon and he is jsut trying to get back into the swing of things. So basically, this week is a poster prep week along with feeding some cells. The only event that took place in the lab was the feeding of the UROtsa cells. I feel like I am starting to get that routine in my brain now. Get to work and feed the cells! It is so joyful...sometimes I even talk to the cells? JK JK that would be so weird. I am trying to be humorous but it's always weird! My poster has been very fun for me. I am having such a good time making it! I can't wait to show it off! hahahahahahha but I know we will all do well on July 13th!

PS- I will blog everyday from camp when I am not here! Keep in touch.


~A. Vo
(End)

Monday: Starting the 5th Week!

Two weeks until the internship is over?! Wow...I must not be paying very much attention to time. Boy, I'm tired, admittedly. I need my caffeine. I really do need it. Either that or some sleep. Actually, eight hours is too much for me, and I got burnt out really easily. SO...I'm going to work six hours, and take a one-hour break. This'll mean less time on the computer, but I'll be actually better off. Anyway, I'm just tired. I need to wake up with some energy pills or something.

Moving on...Patti and I are actually processing embryos. That's really neat. It's mainly bathing the embryos in various degrees of solution. It's all good and stuff. They are E9.5 and E10.5 embryos, so it's all good. Patti has to process an embryo that is about E18.5 days old, and it's the size of an individual soybean, so it'll take a while for her. She admitted it herself.

Anyway, the problem wasn't really the procedure, but mainly the waiting. I hate waiting. It's like a really long moment of suspense. I dunno. I just think it's a pain. Fortunately, I am kept busy with a bunch of other stuff, such as writing my abstract, doing menial chores for them, reading the Far Side, and a bunch of other stuff. Speaking of which, I hope I can finish my poster. I have to figure out what to write about, though. It's very important that I prioritize my assignments. It'll keep me from short-circuiting.

Fortunately, I finished my abstract. It was revised by a lot of people, mainly the majority of the Camenisch lab. Mark read it and made a few changes, as well as Dr. Camenisch. I have to get started on some other stuff, then, such as the introduction, materials and methods, discussion, references, and conclusion parts. Hopefully, it'll be done.

Tomorrow, Patti is planning to take me to another lab, where she will embed the embryos and help some people cut their embryos. I guess cutting is difficult.

The rest of the week!

Everything was very busy after Journal Club. First, there was InDesign training, which was three hours of actually exploring the program and its workings and then studying. After InDesign training, I resided in the library, reading some more articles and getting some stuff done. I really needed to get work done on the abstract. Mark sent his revision to me and I continuously wrote, and wrote....and...yeah, I wrote. I'm started to get cramps from writing and typing so much.

On Thursday, I woke up late, rushed my ride to the College of Pharmacy, and performed a repeat trial on the Has2 and Erb2 PCR reactions. Derrick stated that the previous reaction didn't turn out as well as he expected. I finished the abstract, and then did a bunch of chores for them, such as picking up packages, washing dishes, etc. It's all part of the job, I figure. I do learn a lot. We also ram a gel, and it came out pretty well.

On Friday, there wasn't really much planned for me, especially since I was leaving early, around noon, for a bunch of personal appointments. Derrick and I then analyzed the gel we ran the day before.

Hello Everyone

Hey today was a really intresting day!!! hahaha

good job Shiana!!!

oh yeah mon-ning try to post those pix's!!!


cool well i'll see you all tommorow

oh yeah and ill get pixs of the rest of you guys later tommorow!!

4th week Blog

Thank you Shiana for an interesting presentation today at journal club. Sorry I did not post a specific place for the 3rd week blog. Thanks to all who posted independently. Please put your 4th week blog here.

Directions for Posters

• Remember there are several audiences for your poster: your peers, your parents, your mentors, and other members of the science community
• Your title should be descriptive of your total experience - please be sure to acknowledge both your mentor and your PI
• Abstract - should contain a topic sentence of about 25 words that describes your summer experience globally. Other elements of the abstract include:
• overview of your internship
• basic background information for your internship
• the part your research contribution plays in the overall research of your mentor and PI
• descriptions of the techniques and methods you used
• your current impressions about biomedical research
• Introduction
• To you as a young scientist – why you did the internship and what were your hopes
• To your project – the people, an overview of the larger study of your mentor and PI and how your work was a part of that study
• Background
• An academic discussion of the importance of your research – including: definition of terms and discussion of concepts related to your project
• Your job is to communicate these concepts and not anticipate that others understand them
• Give your understandings based on your reading and discussions
• Include graphs and tables where appropriate
• Methods
• Techniques that you used in your work
• Why those methods were chosen
• Results
• What is anticipated to be learned from the overall project
• How the internship might shape your future
• Photos and other graphics can be helpful in communicating your learning

BIO5 Tour!

Hi All,

Well, you have your t-shirts, so let's put them to good use on a tour! The day and time that we settled on at the meeting today was Friday, July 6th, at noon. We'll meet in the lobby of the BIO5 Keating building and go from there. Don't forget to bring a lunch, and if you decide to get burritos again let me know so I can get an order in...

-Kevin

Working without Mark....

Working without my direct supervisor, Mark Stevens, seemed to be rather difficult. I would be able to perform procedures without any problems and know what to do in the event of such problems. It's been a real challenge, I admit, trying to remember the recipe for the master mixes for the Has2, Erb2, and HBEGF. There was so much to deal with. I had to write an abstract, and being caffeine-free, it was really, really, really difficult. I guess the caffeine affected my brain, literally, taking over my synaptic regions and replacing dopamine. Ugh....but now moving on. I had to take power naps in order to actually sustain my composure during the day. I guess I'm getting a little burned-out. I shouldn't, though. I really like this internship. I get to work alongside researchers and still hang out with people my age.

It's so difficult to focus now, because I'm getting too used to being an intern. That's the problem. Unlike most people, who focus MORE when they get used to a job, I somehow focus less. That's scaring me, because I really want to do a really good job in this internship. Dr. Camenisch and I are trying to figure out what I can do in order to better my lab experience at their lab, such as more benchwork and less paperwork. This is definitely time to buckle down, especially since it's the last three weeks or less left of the research internship.

I've got an abstract to do. Ugh. Those are definitely not fun. Not fun at all. I don't like them. It's six hundred words of what I did. Well, I guess....six weeks...six hundred words...that comes down to...a hundred words a week easily. So...moving on...I think it'll be slightly easier if I actually write an outline concerning my project and what I did over the summer. I think that's what the project is supposed to be about. Either that or it's supposed to be on my project: Cell Signaling Directing Embryonic Cardiogenesis. Translation: How cells make hearts.

last week in a nutshell!

Hello Mi Amigos!
Translation→ Hello My Friends!

Okay here is one of my infamous quotes!→

“With great power comes great responsibility”
-Ben Parker

Hahaha as some of you guys may have guess yes that quote is form one the best movies known to man! Anyways, my reflection upon last week is a rather blur since it progressed at such a fast pace. Fortunately/Unfortunately, I had to attend my University of Arizona Orientation for incoming freshman last week, which took up two whole days of my life, where I had to sit the majority of the time and listen to people talk about how great this fine institution is.

I came back to the lab after two days without being out of the "loop” and had to play catch up on much needed PCR and DNA Extractions. I jumped right in and started working on what needed to be done without any hesitation... Now looking back on last week a lot of work has been accomplished! Our lab is now getting ready to send off DNA to be sequenced as well as preparing Greg and myself with the knowledge to be able to analyze data that will soon be coming in.

Last weeks journal club went fairly well! Good job Greg and Logan. At the journal meeting we discussed critical issue regarding the end of this internship ☹ as well a possible tour of the BIO5 Institute Building ☺. I am excited since I just checked my e-mail and got confirmation that we will indeed be taking that tour! Okay Amigos I’ll talk to you all later and hoped you enjoyed reading my blog!

-Daniel

Suffering from a really bad case of the Mondays....ugh...

The Camenisch lab is once again busy as I perform my fifth IHC. I keep repeating the same procedure. Being a researcher is very interesting, and working is part of an all-out effort, and not so pleasant jobs. There’s washing dishes (yuck), making cell cultures, removing embryos from the uterus of the mouse, picking up stuff from various parts of the College of Pharmacy, and a few other things. Fortunately, explanting embryos and running errands for my mentors here seem to be of great interest to me, mainly because I prefer dissection and doing stuff for others.

There are several minor procedures that seem to come to light on Mondays. One of them is autoclaving the graduated cylinders, Erlenmeyer flasks, and various other tools of science, such as glass test tubes and bottles. Sterilizing the equipment is very important in order to provide the necessary tools of the trade for the good of science. Failure to do so isn’t an option.

The fifth IHC, so far, only has three slides to be tested with Filamin-1 antibody. Dr. Camenisch seems to have developed an interest in Filamin-1. That is still subject to debate. Maybe it’s because Mark has done so much with MEKK4. But, in all sincerity, I do not know.

Mark is leaving for Washington D.C. tomorrow, and he wants me to possibly perform a DNA extraction from the tail tip digests he’s going to make today and PCR. It’s going to test for MEKK4 so we could add a little relevant color to our projects. Progress has shown over the weeks for sure.

Tiffany: Practice Makes Perfect

Last week I got the opportunity to conduct the last step of protein determination processes on my own. After I had gone through all but the last step of the Western Blot, I was excited to see the results of my experiments and triumphantly show the X-rays of my protein membranes to Gladys. I wanted to make sure that everything in my procedure was correct, so when I was transferring the membranes to the X-ray in the dark room, it took me much longer than usual. I remember looking into the machine many times to see if the X-rays had come out yet. And when they finally did, and I held them up to the light to see the markers, I was superbly...disappointed!!!
There was absolutely nothing at all on the X-rays; even the protein marker that was visible on the membrane itself had not been transferred to the X-ray! I felt like wringing my hands and saying, "NOOOOO!!!!" but luckily I restrained myself. I was extremely sad that all of my work over the past week to prepare the proteins for analysis had been a failure. But now I know that my work was not completely useless; I have learned that science is a trial-and-error process, many times with more errors than true successes. So I will start analyzing my methods to see if I made an error along the way that I did not catch earlier, and fix my mistake the next time I do this process. Even though all my efforts led up to blank X-rays, the good thing about making mistakes is that I will always be acutely aware that everything that I do in each step is so important in leading to a successful result.

SHOW UPDATES

So everyone,

The TV show script is almost complete and our episode guide leads us all up to week six now with SO MANY surprises along the way. It is getting better and better...so the elimination of week five took place leaving only four more interns...but the end of the show is near...the four remaining interns duke it out in DDR and one will be eliminated.


PS- Our show starts filming as soon as I get the script to everyone!

Greg: A week of failures and opportunities.

Failures-

1. This week was supposed to be the last week that we were running bulk PCR's for Matt's Tiger Rattlesnake project however come Friday we hit a speed bump. A batch of PCR's didn't work and we don't know why. Next week we will re-run these samples and if they once again don't work we will start all of and re-extract them from the tissue samples.

Hopefully we will have the entire problem sorted out on Monday so that we can finally send everything off to G.A.T.C to get sequenced. Once we get that back we will begin the next step of our project. We'll start the analysis, and pens and paper will replace our pipettes and beakers.

Opportunities-

1. The entire week I was very apprehensive about the journal club. This week. My week. Logan and I hit center stage on Friday to deliver our reports on our respective articles. I can't remember exactly how my went (I am already repressing those moments but it might have turned out ok.... maybe?), but Logan's was very interesting. I also want to thank Nathan, our guest speaker, for his presentation on NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease).

2. I really got to know Demetre this week. Two weeks ago I never would have guessed that he lives such an interesting life or can speak perfect Greek for that matter! I am glad I get to work with him.

3. More great food and social adventures with the rest of the cast of Intern Survivor.

As you can see the opportunities beat out the failures three to one. Go go opportunities.

Shiana: Trial, Error, and Success

This past week I got my first taste of what it means to do real laboratory science. Every step must be double-checked for success and no pain should be spared to attain the materials needed for a project to yield optimum results. Unfortunately, ordering these materials have caused some small delays already because companies seem to be slower in the summer time delivering their products. We have found ways to continue to be productive, however.

My mentor Rae and I had both planned last week to begin the next step of our project by Monday, but we were held up because we noticed in our last experiment that the DNA concentration of Prx III we ended up with was much lower than normal. It was confusing at first because Rae had never gotten such consistently low concentrations before. To test the control plasmids we had rendered by conducting a smaller experiment (with one control ampicillin plate that grew and two amp. plates that did not), we had to conclude that the problem lay with the primers we had ordered. By asking around, Rae was able to locate another vector the lab used that always yielded good results in the past. In order to use this vector, however, we needed to design and order a new set of primers. These should come in by next Monday (though we had requested them by Thursday).

Meanwhile, for practice and experience I set about replicating the steps for creating the control Prx III plasmid I had watched Rae do last week. My digestion did not work the first time I tried it, which was frustrating especially since when I went over my procedure with Rae and showed her exactly what I had done, she could find nothing wrong with how I conducted the digestion. She gave me a few tips and helped supervise me the second time I did my digestion. When I checked my gel for my results, I found that only my plasmid had been cut and not my vector. The only thing that we could come up with that went wrong was that too much of the restriction enzymes NotI and EcoRI could have been added in, since both have a tendency to cling to the inside of a pipette tip because of the glycerol in it. There was no time to conduct the experiment a third time because it was already 5 P.M., so I left for the day.

The next day my mentor and I decided to alter digestion system volumes and I started right in on my project when I got into the lab (usually I am the first or second to arrive). This time, reading my gel was tricky because while my plasmid clearly worked, my vector lane had two bands that were very close together. Usually, you only expect to see either three bands if it didn’t work, or one if it did work. I chose to clean up the DNA in both lanes and continue on with my experiment to make sure if it worked or not, making two ligation systems with vector DNA from Rae and from my own experiment so I could compare them.

I was nervous the rest of the week for whether or not my experiment would work or not while I tried very carefully to follow my procedure notes accurately, and lo and behold! Patience and persistence paid off on Friday when I found out that all my trials had worked after all. This has boosted my confidence because now I know for sure that I am capable of conducting the rest of my experiment on my own.

Also, the journal club presentation by our guest speaker was very much enjoyable this week. He was quite involving and did not hesitate to tackle complicated concepts with us or dole out scientific jargon. Laughter, as always, was abundant and it was clear everyone had fun being together as a group and talking about their projects and research papers. I am very eager and look forward to my last three weeks of this internship, and in fact I have already discussed with my mentor possibilities for staying on in the lab for the rest of the summer. I love the whole atmosphere and feeling of actual contribution.

Logan's Week in a Nutshell

Hey everybody! So, this week was very good, very good indeed. I've made serious progress with my project and so has Brianna (with my help of course (-: ) Journal club was very enjoyable especially with our guest presentation, and the lab was certainly quiet the last two days of the week because Dr. Miesfel and Jun were off to Johns Hopkins to do some politicking in order to renew a grant that the lab currently is funded by.

So, the week started off with a small amount fo the failure I had described in my last blog. I was testing whether the vector I had transformed into competent bacterial cells held the insert of DNA of interest or not. I sadly discovered that they did not! I tested all of my samples with no success. So, what can you do? You start over. I did exactly that and consolidated the work from the 5 days prior into the next 3 while adding in another project; testing the promoter of the 5G1 gene in Aedes Aegypti. To say the least, Brianna and I were efficient in our work this week, and having fun doing it. (I encouraged our lab manager to let us listen to some sweet tunes while we all worked, AND Brianna got a brand new MacBook so we played with that a little) For my projects with the Elongation Factor gene and 5G1 gene I: ran PCR to amplify the sections of DNA of interest, ran a gel, did band purification and prep, ligated into a TA vector, transformed into competent cells, plated those cells, ran colony PCR, cultured the cells that worked best, and miniprepped those cultures. Now I'm ready to do restriction digestions and ligate into an expression vector, transfect with S2 cells, then inject in mosquitoes! I could possibly have results by the end of the week!!!

Brianna is also ready to run restriciont digestions then ligate into an expression vector, though one different from mine with a promoter already coded for. We are both at a point she hasn't reached before in her research, for the results we get will most likely contribute to a research paper the lab will produce at some point.

We also had a sweet journal club on Friday. I gave my presentation (which I hope was comprehensible and at least semi-interesting to all of you) after Greg's and was relieved to have it done with. I'm nothing but excited for the upcoming week and weeks to come.

Change to Movie Night (We will go eventually I promise, lol) :P

Okay, so this Saturday didn't work out, because I actually had to clean my room and work (not at the Movies). But we can still go another day if you guys want. I can go on Sunday after 4:30pm and Tuesday after intern work. You guys just have to decide what you guys would like to do. I'll probably give you all a call sometime later today and ask what you guys would like to do, but if I don't get to you all, you can E-mail, Call, or Even IM (aim: kuramashoujo304 or msn: mvf2002@hotmail.com) me. S'later studs!

Mon-Ning

New Movies: Lucky You and Dead or Alive

Greg: Oh where oh where can my burrito be?!

The lord took her away from me.

Next week my favorite burrito joint is closing. Goodbye Rigoberto's Mexican food, I will never forget you.



P.S. Marti where do we post this weeks assignment?

TGIF...really? Funny I didn't notice....

Going to the Camenisch lab was mainly focused on me helping out and not doing anything major, such as refilling the Nanopure H2O and picking up packages. I also assisted Mark about some packages and filled out some more paperwork. I also cleaned up the work benches a bit, providing the aesthetic atmosphere for the researchers. It was very beneficial for the lab personnel, because it provided that aesthetic atmosphere for everybody to work in. I just thought it would be a very good idea.

Journal club provided some degree of interest. Greg provided his presentation concerning his project and the behavior of snakes. Logan also described of his very complicated, but comprehensible, project and concepts, which was concerning a project performed on Drosophila, now going to be performed on Aedeus Aegypti. All in all, it provided ideas of RNAi (RNA interference) into the workings of the mosquitoes. Kevin came by to observe us, but he had to then leave around noon for a meeting at noon. He told us that the idea of tags is probably not going to happen because the tag are more of a security nature than an identity nature. It allows authorized personnel to maneuver in, out, and around the building.

Moving on. Dr. Nathan Cherrington was a very casual, and knowledgeable, pedagogue to the world of toxicology. He is currently working on drug transporters in the liver. That seemed to be of great interest to the interns and Marti. Nathan was also rather comical, and very friendly.

So here I am, back at the lab, working on some more stuff. I don't really know what I'd do without the computer. I'm just so dependent on the computer nowadays. Oh well....Mark, Derrick, and I didn't really plan anything today. We just wanted to get some stuff out of the way, and probably figure out what to do while Mark is gone at Washington D.C. He said he's excited, and I'm happy for him. He gets to do some stuff. Allie's in Idaho, and she's probably having some fun too. Laurel just got back from Virginia and/or Canada, and she's swamped. I've been working from 8 to 5, so I've been busy. I feel like I'm living in the lab. There is that possibility.

Alex.....

Thursday of Tiredness....

Finally, a lull. After three days straight of explants, PCR, gels, IHCs, and IMFs, dishwashing, cell culturing, pipetting, and various other seemingly endless tasks, I’ve finally got some downtime and there are two procedures that I’m performing simultaneously, another PCR and an IHC. Repetition is good, even in science. It makes you want to go back to the basics, really.

Yesterday, Andrew sentenced me to 24 hours of “friend probation”. He and Tiffany concurred to the notion that since I’ve been taking small doses of caffeine in order to pep me up, not to go crazy. I don’t know when that sentence is carried out, but he said when he feels like it. It can even be carried out over the weekend, which is what I hope. I don’t know what’s wrong with regulated dosages of caffeine via Coca-Cola. It’s not like I’ve gone hyper yet. He said I probably won’t have to carry out the sentence because I was pretty calm. Unfortunately, I aggravated my sentence, and I’m undergoing said “punishment”, also due to the fact that I “insulted” LBD and used words that completely confused him and threw him into a state of confusion. He has the chutzpah Boy, why has he been so testy lately? He also was rather euphoric today, because he kept spazzing out during lunch today. Ugh…boy…it’s sure to be a great time to alienate him. He was ready to cough up a lung. That would be very disgusting, by all accounts, not just mine. *sigh, drinks a Coke*

Moving on…the lab was actually slightly more enjoyable than lunch. Slightly is going to be the VERY subjective term here, defined, for Andrew’s sake, as “subject to opinion”. I really don’t understand the concept of “friend probation”, really. It’s not academic, and it’s certainly oxymoronic.

Boy, I am really tired. I really need to take another power nap. Power naps are very convenient, because I can’t really stand to sleep for a long time. I’ll get tired EVEN MORE, conveniently. I don’t know. I can’t sleep in Dr. Camenisch’s lab. I’ll get into trouble. *sigh* He’s not a fan of people sleeping in his lab, because it shows slacking off, and he loathes slacking off. He can’t “hate”, because “hate” is such a strong word, and it’s too direct and hateful. “Loathe”, on the other hand, is very, shall we say, legalistic. But, all in all, I like the term “loathe”. Currently, Derrick is imaging a gel that I ran. I asked him to, because I’m starting to lose focus due to tiredness. I really feel off today.

Oh...wow...the gel images came back, and the reaction worked. I'm a little happy now. I feel a little better to the fact that procedures worked out. Tomorrow, I'm going to the Schroeder lab and get some images done for the IHC, then go to journal club. See you all there!

Alex….

More stuff about stuff....

Today, I came in rather late, but I was still occupied with various tasks to be performed around the lab. I liked the jobs nonetheless. For instance, I was assigned to perform an explant and a PCR reaction that I performed yesterday. Once again, I liked both jobs. It’s better than washing dishes. I don’t exactly know why Derrick and Sophia are so interested in me washing dishes. This is the same “drama mama” who lost it in a procedure because a harmless chemical went into her eyes.

Moving on…the explant was a very detailed and important procedure, because that is definitely where the embryos come from. All I needed was some forceps, scissors, and a sponlike device to transfer the embryos from one Petri dish to another. I was pretty happy applying such dissection techniques to mice. It takes more time to actually prepare for the procedure, admittedly, than actually doing the procedure. We had to clean the tools and the other equipment to try to keep the embryos as sterile so we wouldn’t have to face contamination and thereby preventing tampered results.

The PCR was also interesting. Currently, a gel is undergoing electrophoresis for another photo shoot. However, it was just the same procedure as before. I can’t really state any notable difference, not even an anomaly, in the procedure. It’s routine, that’s all. No more, no less.

Well, it’s a good thing I had my daily, regulated, and miniscule dosage of caffeine today. I’m too tired to be hyper. I stayed up until three, but I took a five-hour nap as soon as I go home. Yikes. *sigh* 34 mg/12 ml is a strong dose for me, but it’s still tasty.

Travis came by today. He took some pictures of me making PBS and pipetting “something” into a tube. I can’t say they were very good pictures. They definitely seemed staged because they were. It lost it’s authentic feel. It did not have a certain je ne sais quoi. Maybe the interns should just give a certain time to Travis when they are doing certain procedures and then he’ll try to fit it into his schedule.

Tomorrow, I’m doing another IHC. Mark’s going to be pretty busy with some other stuff, but he’ll be around to supervise and help when he deems it necessary. I’ll also have to do some more stuff, and probably figure out what to do while Mark is away. He assigned me to design my poster so that Dr. Camenisch, Mark, and I can try to edit and revise more stuff about stuff.

Alex....

Exciting Week?!?

This week has been very uneventful in many ways. I have been stuck in a Orientation for the U of A for TWO DAYS IN A ROW. I think I might pass out from boredom. The only scientific thing that I have done in the past week is a DNA purification and tape Petri dishes for my intern partner in crime, Vicky. I also worked on some Plasmid Mini-preps, which actually takes a while to accomplish, and ran gels on some of the samples that I made minipreps with.

So far, my project has been at a stand still, because there have been no a signs of growth in any of my medias. Personally, I think the fungus isn't growing since all of the medias I made are catered more towards plant fungus vs. animal, but I won’t know for sure until Dr Orbach comes back on Monday. Until then I’m putting my lab time to work on Teacher Intern Vicky’s project, which I’m not entirely sure what’s going down.

PS. Good Job to Logan and Greg’s Journal Club Presentations this week, The presentations were really mind stimulating and mind bottling. I also want to thank our guest speaker this week, because I found it really interesting and educational.

Mon-Ning

HEY?!?!?!

IRMA!!!

lol

Joyful List

SO I want everyone to know about the joyful seniors table that I sat next to last year. It is such joyful memories and it was fun joyfully "stalking" them although they were actually stalking us. I want to share this because I saw many of the joyful seniors at orientation while I was at lunch.

Names-

Joyful Frost Employee (I visit him at Frost every weekend and only request service from the joyful employee)

Joyful Redhead (He has joyfully red hair)

Joyful Asian (He has issues with me)

Joyful Asian squared (He is the leader of this band! They are all in film club)

Bear Suit (He has a bear suit that he wears)

Fork In Pocket Lad (he ALWAYS has a fork in his pocket)

Patches and New York!! My BFFLs

LBD- Longboard Dude...how can we forget....we saw him and he was very amused with our laughter about him today at lunch...People seriously hate me now in the student union hahahha jk

so here is the joyful list...there is more to come

The busy days get busier...

Tuesday became one hectic day. I wouldn’t consider it a day with a lot of downtime. I walked in for sat down for five minutes when Derrick assigned me upon an interesting procedure, called DNA extraction. It was learning from repetition once again, and it was pretty simple once you get the gist of it. Centrifuging, washing, immersing, and various other movements were the key parts of the procedure. You need to know which concentration to bathe the DNA first so it could be prepped for PCR, which was the next thing that I did. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was performed by Mark and I.

Meanwhile, Mark and Sophia were performing rtPCR (which stands for real-time polymerase chain reaction, which is a rather long phrase iff (if and only if) you think about it). Mark showed that rtPCR actually showed the appearance of certain strands of DNA, which was muy interesante. The rtPCR would actually display a graph via a computer, which would definitely be a logistics equation. A logistics equation is a type of mathematical formula that would display a graph that would gradually increase in slope and then level off at a certain x-coordinate. Where the graph’s slope begins to sharply increase is where there is an early sighting of such items in the rtPCR. All in all, it was very enlightening.

After I performed the PCR for them, I prepared the samples for a gel electrophoresis, for detection of the bands. It took an hour or so, but the samples did not overrun, and we provided some images of the samples via a machine attached to another computer. Most of the equipment in the lab is attached to a computer, strangely.

Moving on…Mark brought me over to the Schroeder lab and we continued to view some slides and began to look effortlessly for some anomalies. Unfortunately, there weren’t any. There was something unusual with the Vimentin antibody though. Unlike the MEKK4 or the Filamin-1, the Vimentin’s activity did not appear on the microscope. The immunohistochemistry may have had a problem with the procedure. Vimentin uses an anti-goat antibody, and I was using a concentration of 10% goat serum to incubate the slides. Maybe the results would change dramatically if I used rabbit or donkey serum. I’m not sure. This was a combination of Mark’s and my input. Maybe redoing and reviewing the this enigmatic procedure as soon as possible may be a capital idea.

Dr. Camenisch said that the only difference between mouse and human hearts is just size. That's all he said. That was rather interesting. He also gave me a crash course on his paper concerning hyaluronan, which is an ingredient within hyaluronic acid, which is a sugar that extends to a million daltons, which was sure to be of interest.

Tomorrow, there is an explant to be performed. Mark’s planning to dissect the mouse and remove the uterus, and then dissect the uterus in pursuit of the embryos. Afterwards, he would try to harvest the embryos and then have them in a collagen culture. All in all, I am deeply interested at the moment, and hope that I’ll be there in time for the procedure. I don't know really. It is possible that he might have to remove the atrioventricular canals from the embryonic hearts. That must require a sort of je ne sais quoi when you're dealing with these things. He has really good, steady hands with the two forceps. It's definitely microsurgery at its worst.

FRIEND PROBATION!

So lately, I have been putting people on friend probation, not really though. I wouldn't do that to anyone here unless they dissed LBD (*cough* alex *cough*). Haha I don't mean to be rude but I just wanted you all to know that this kind of system still exists in today's world!! haha I hope you all will have fun with this and don't be offended, please! If you have problems, please tell me. So last year, my friends came up with this idea and it was so funny. Here is the breakdown on how to get friend probation! (P.S.- This will be a funny episode!)

First offense- Warning

Second offense- Friend Probation

Friend Probation Violations

1. Depending on what you do, there is a specific amount of time in which you are on probation.
(ie- Someone on Yahoo answers said friend probation is immature so they got a life sentence of friend probation...REAL STORY)

2. If you say anything that offends LBD, that is a minimum of at least one week of FP.

3. IF you purposely use words no one understands (ie- sumoylation) then that is a minimum of 5 minutes FP.

4. IF you purposely diss LBD because of his association with his joyful BFFLs, then that is a minimum of 3 years FP.

5. IF you don't learn anything from this experience during your internship, Marti is forced to give you a life sentence of FP.

Have fun with this...the episode will be filmed about FP

Why hello

Hi guys!
As Andrew always says, this week has brought some joyful times! I always look forward to seeing everyone else and asking them how their week is going. It's amazing how close we've all grown....I still remember the first day when there were long pauses, awkward silences, and shifty eyes. Now we just rush in and start joking with each other. I was even convinced to get a myspace (after holding out for 4 years--thanks guys) so that we could chat online. :)
Also, I appreciate how Gladys is really understanding whenever I ask a lot of questions. She wants me to understand the material to the best of my ability, so this week I've started reading two more papers on Ecstasy so that I can better understand the concept. One of the things I've learned so far is that is joyous times....LAWLZ. Well I am glad that I am friends with everyone here...it makes my experience good times. LBD (AKA--LONGBOARD DUDE) is the best because he is Mon-Nings lover. Thank you for giving my blog pizzazz, Andrew Vo.
So ANYWAY, it's hard to top Andrew's awesome outburst, but I'll just leave you guys with one thing that will help me understand the concept better: MDMA (ecstasy) produces a rapid release of serotonin and dopamine from the neurotransmitters in the brain, which produces effects like rapid movement, since this increases the body's metabolism.

So guys, thanks for making my learning experience all the more amusing (andrew) and see you at lunch!

script!

EVERYONE...

JOYFUL TIMES...I HAVE JUST FINISHED THE SCRIPT FOR EPISODE ONE OF OUR SHOW!! BTW THE week four elimination has been updated...this is getting intense!!

~A. Vo

Greg: The intern Hunter.

Be very very quiet! I'm hunting interns!

Notice, if you will, how the interns politely ask each other about their week ends. A classic attempt to be friendly and obtain a closer understanding of each other. Notice too how they gather around the watering hole each day towards the midday...

Ahh you've spooked them, but look another group.

Aren't we lucky?

Usually they stay in the shade during the summer. This makes them very difficult to find and happening upon two herds in the same day is a singularly lucky occurrence.

This group seems very close. Yes, very close indeed. I would imagine they have been together not even a month yet but already they have plans to meet each other beyond that of their usual habitat. It is this, a strange phenomenon for sure, that is singular defining trait of the summer intern.

But in all seriousness I am excited for this "movie night" I can't wait!
And Marti I am very sorry I didn't get a blog posted last week but it is up now.

Monday...the week's starter...

Monday begins at its usual, bleak morning. There was so much to describe on this glorious Monday. Monday, I began working on another immunohistochemistry. Well, it’s actually my third, to be honest. It all began with choosing the slides. Mark and I did agree, eventually, on which slides to pick for primary antibody treatment. Then it came to replacing the chemicals in accordance with the sterile technique, for the good of science. First, it came to learning how to dump the stuff. I was given a glass bottle, and with some degree of ease, I dumped the chemicals. Afterwards, there was that difficult task of trying to open the bottle of Xylene, without getting the stuff spilled on you. The bottle must have been sealed with superglue, because it took the personnel in the Camenisch lab and some help from other labs in order to get the job done. Fortunately, Derrick did get some pliers, and the problem was resolved, I figure. Fortunately, I did perform my procedure, and had my slides ready for incubation just in time for lunch.

Boy, lunch was pretty enjoyable. I ate a taco salad basket, which was pretty good. I don’t know. After lunch, I visited Tiffany’s and Shiana’s lab and we talked. I then returned to my lab and then talked to Mark. There was still an hour or two to wait before I have to actually check on my slides. So, Derrick drafted me into the cleanup crew and we washed dishes. There was so much downtime, so I read research papers, watched some educational videos, and began writing effortlessly. I like writing. You can try to put your emotions onto paper, and it helps for those rough times in life.

Currently, it is the afternoon, and I’m waiting for my immunohistochemistry samples to be done for further treatment. I plan to have the slides viewed by tomorrow, and I really need to be awake so that I can get some more work done. Science isn’t always glorious and enlightening as people think. It’s sometimes waiting for a certain specimen to be incubated or just work that no one else wants to do. However, it’s all a part of life. It’s not just fun and games here, though.

Alex…..

Update on Movie Night!!

OK, so it seems that almost everyone would like to go to movie night. I'm thinking about sometime this week, maybe Tuesday. I know a totally random day, but that's the only day that I know that I'm not working there (at the theatres I mean). But it's still up to you guys and when you guys are available!

I really don't care what movie we watch, because I haven't watched any of them yet. Oh by the way, Premonition was taken off, because the guy upstairs let the film burn so we don't have that movie film anymore.

Okay, Let me know dudes!
Mon-Ning

PS. We don't all have to go all at once, we still have like a million more times we can all head to the movies.. I'll probably be working there till the end of the summer.. so whoever can go we'll head over. Also car-pooling is an awesomely cool thing, I can drive three other people, legally, besides me.

Andrew: My life as an intern-week three

June 18, 2007

Can you believe it? We are in the fourth week of the internship....that means in
Today is still in progress but my day in the lab is somewhat a little more lax. I started the day by setting up my lab station in preparation to split the cells that I have been feeding. So splitting essentially means transferring to a different plate. This process is somewhat difficult to me because I am still a little confused about some of these steps. That is why I took notes when I was observing my mentors doing this assay. So Kylee has informed me that Monday is usually her planning day so there isn't much to do. So I have been reading a book in order to keep me busy. Then, she tells me that I will be attending a Ph.D. seminar this afternoon and I can't wait to have this experience.

After the seminar, I realized that it was pretty interesting, but I only managed to get a few concepts out of sumoylation of proteins. Linda Manza was the presenter and she did a good job and I definitely think she deserves to get her Ph.D.

After that seminar, I was doing a BCA Assay which lets me find out what the concentration of protein is. It was not that difficult, but it is so tedious. I think I am starting to get the hang of this lab situation. So pretty much after the BCA assay, I am practically done for the day. Now a little R & R! Can't wait until tomorrow!!! (I get to leave early.) =)

Highlight of the day: I saw our joyful college student/restaurant worker/joyful stalker (jk), LBD, and Mon-Ning's lover...haha

Later

~A. Vo
(to be continued...)


June 19, 2007


So today, I didn't do very much. Well I did but it was very time consuming. I performed a western blot and a western blot is used to determine proteins. I was not very fond of it, but when I went to go to cell culture and split my UROtsa cells, joyful things happened! That made my life more joyful. So today, I pretty much did not do much. The western blot is really the only thing that I did. The steps, as I mentioned, are very time consuming. It makes my life more intense when the steps take 2-4 hours. So, today was a little more enjoyable.

After lunch, there was not much that needed to be done so I practically took the rest of the day off. I worked on my abstract and then I focused my attention onto other scholarship opportunities on FastWeb. After all that, I went home. GOOD TIMES! (PS- This blog may be the most non-entertaining one yet!)


~A. Vo
(to be continued...)


June 20, 2007

Today was practically the most JOYFUL day of my intern life! It was so amazing, but that story I will share in the lunch section. Haha, so my day begins as I am to complete the western blot. I wait until 1:30 pm so the incubation process will be complete. After lunch, I developed a film and it was practically the best thing that ever happened. The film came out how it was supposed to turn out. So my day turns out more like Tuesday. After the film, there was not much to do so I, again, focused my attention on my abstract for the poster presentation. So now the academic part is over with.

LUNCH! The most joyful time of the day. I am so happy that I accomplished MISSION FRIEND PROBATION and MISSION JOYFULLY STALK. BTW (AKA by the way) joyfully stalking is just getting someone's attention. It has absolutely nothing to do with stalking. That would be creepy. So, LBD (Mon-Ning's secret lover) showed up at lunch and I had a spaz attack and I started laughing uncontrollably. LBD wanted to sit at another table, but he was generous enough to sit RIGHT IN FRONT of us so he can look at Mon-Ning. It was the most entertaining thing that happened. I was really about to die of laughter/cough up a lung/rolling on the floor laughing.

Mon-Ning came to my lab and was there for a little while. Then after I fed my cells (serum-free and serum-enriched) and developed the film for the western blot, she and I were in Tiffany and Shiana's lab for a little chat. So really, that is how my day went. The most JOYFUL DAY!

~A.Vo
(to be continued...)

June 21, 2007

Thursday, my mentor Sarah returned from her trip and it was fun. She and I performed a BCA assay. For all those who don't know what this is, a BCA is Bicinchoninic acid and it is used to determine the concentration of protein. We used a reader to then determine the concentration of protein in the 96-well plates. So we did that until noon and I finished up the results on excel after lunch. The morning went by quick and it was most enjoyable.

AT LUNCH!! JK everyone...TODAY IS THE MOST JOYFUL DAY OF MY LIFE! But I decided to terminate MISSION JOYFULLY STALK because it was really awkward. So the new mission is MISSION GET-MON-NING-and LBD TOGETHER. MISSION FRIEND PROBATION is in progress. So we saw our joyful stalker LBD at lunch, and he sat else-where to begin with but he saw us...and sat in front of us again. He smiled at the thought of us talking about him, which he apparently knew. I know he loves Mon-Ning and she loves him because they stare into each other's eyes...haha LAWLZ. But he was staring at Tiffany and I too, considering the fact that I could not stop laughing which triggered tiffany's laughter. I am so excited for the new mission. Then, he was on the same Cat Tran we were on...how weird. It is like he is following us. MISSION JOYFULLY STALK ACCOMPLISHED. He pays attention to Mon-Ning now and that was the plan to begin with. (FYI- joyfully stalking is getting someone's attention, not stalking them...that would be too weird.)

Learning and Advice by Kim!

I love being an intern and going to the lab every day. Everyone I've met has been amazingly understanding and friendly, especially my mentors and fellow interns. It has been a rough learning time for me and I've probably skipped more steps than the TUSD learning tiers would ever allow, but it has been quite the experience - like learning a new language through immersion. I have learned more about science in the past two weeks than a semester (or two ) of biology at school and enjoyed it a great deal more.

This week I got a little more responsibility and freedom with things like pouring and loading gels, making PBS, tris, and other buffers and reagents. I also saw some aspects of working in a lab that are less appealing like getting inspected by men from Risk Management and Safety, filling pipette tips, and adjusting pH. Unfortunately, they are necessary to producing good science. Filling pipettes is tedious, but if you can master the one-handed insert by strategically picking up two or three tips between your fingers the task becomes far more amusing and enjoyable. pH technique eludes me. I was so scared of adding too much of HCl that I took 'drop by drop' literally. In retrospect, I would say that is unnecessary, but patience is ultimately the only way to get through that one. Inspection is tough. My advice is to act busy and blend into the background because getting interrogated about personal glove removing habits is intimidating regardless of how simple it seems.

Now, on to science...

Aysen and I have continued doing protein and DNA purifications, ligations, and digestions, but they are no longer just procedures to me. We run at least three protocols at once, but the initial daze and confusion, the blind pipetting and such has subsided. Last week's focus for me was understanding individual steps of the protocol - after the buffer add what; why do we have a secondary antibody? I'm still learning more of every step, but now I'm stepping back - stepping back in a sense that I can look up at the bigger picture, the goals, the significance of result, where all those little steps add up to. We are studying the Enteropathogenic (EPEC) and Enterohemorrhagic (EHEC) strains of E. Coli, specifically the flagella of each. The flagella is the part of E. coli that allows the bacteria to be motile, to move up and down the colon for example. Does the flagella have an affinity to mucin? Specifically, does each monomer of the flagella have an affinity to the mucin - and further, does a section of each flagellin's DNA also have a reaction to mucin? Mucins are a component of mucus, secreted by the body as a line of defense against pathogens, such as EPEC and EHEC strains of E.coli. Our mucin samples were collected from a cow colon as EPEC and EHEC interfere with the digestive processes in this part of the body. We test each structure of the flagella with Western blots and immunofluorescence to determine affinity to mucin. This study not only focuses on flagella's role in immunity, but also components of the structure itself. We are digesting, purifying, and ligating plasmids to take up a DNA insert that codes for the flagella. After we have ascertained the plasmid has taken up the insert, we will send it to be sequenced and hopefully will find that the genes and the insert can be expressed properly.

This is science for science- yet another building block of Truth to be used by the community to come to far and reaching goals unbeknownst presently. By studying flagella, E.coli becomes more familiar to the scientific community. E.coli plays a crucial role in how lab science is carried out. So although it does not give us life-altering results immediately, it holds great potential to change our lives.

I'm excited to see what we'll accomplish next week!

P.S. Fellow interns, I second Mon-Ning's movie night idea.

Shiana: Illumination

It seems the longer we’ve all been interns, the closer we’ve all grown. We have gone from arranging to meet at lunch every day to creating our own TV show to even planning weekend get-togethers. Being among a group so interested in research and science in general is wonderful. This past week for me has continued to entail meeting many new faces and making new friends. I have had the chance to talk to UMC interns, Bio Academy interns and its teachers, and a professor, Dr. Karen McGinnis, from the plant sciences department.

While at first the research project that I was to eventually conduct on my own and independently was hard for me to fully comprehend, through asking a great many questions and double-checking concepts (sometimes thrice-checking) with my mentor, I have been able to piece together the big picture of my project as well as what is occurring at the molecular level in every lab procedure that my mentor and I have conducted so far. The terminology that my field of research involves has become easier for me to understand, which helps me immensely in reading through my research papers and additional articles online. I am continuing to do research to find out smaller details about cell processes and the chemicals, proteins, and enzymes involved. My confidence in the lab, now that I have familiarized myself with my surroundings, has increased pleasantly.

My mentor took the time out last weekend to draft a schedule for what I would be occupied with during the rest of my internship and this week was designated for learning technique and reading the principles of procedures and about a variety of other related concepts. This meant that I was to mostly watch my mentor and take careful notes on how things were done. Meanwhile, I was able to learn how to create agarose solutions and adjust buffer concentrations, as well as learn about protein gels (though proteins are not a part of my project). By the time Thursday swung about and we met the second time with Dr. Monks, our lab’s principle investigator, my mentor’s confidence in me had grown and she allowed me to start conducting my experiment by myself ahead of schedule.

As a summary of the beginning of my project, this week my mentor and I prepared our control vector that contained Prx III without any mutation. We also performed mutagenesis of Cys 108 by replacing it with Ser (abbreviated C108S) and C229S using our four mutagenesis primers that we ordered last week. Next week when I take over my project, I will use most of the same methods I saw this week to create three vectors with only C108S and C229S mutations, and then one with both mutations. When we arrive at this point, we will analyze the altered function of Prx III with its double mutations compared to a normal Prx III by putting Prx III back into a live cell.

The last two days of the week....

Thursday and Friday were pretty busy, but not as busy as the first three days of the work-week. Thursday, I actually came into the College of Pharmacy rather late due to the fact I had to go to the dermatologist (yes, the doctor who checks my skin). Afterwards, I went immediately to work, with a stop at Subway for something to eat.

Anyway, on Thursday, Mark and I went to the Schroeder lab at the bottom floor of the Cancer Center and look at the immunohistochemistries that was performed on Wednesday. We then took pictures of the MEKK4 and Filamin-A activities in E11.5 samples. Most of the slides turned out all right, but there was one that was compromised during the procedure. We are unsure of how that happened. It could have been the original appearance before the treatments, or the procedure could have definitely done something to it. We’re still trying to figure that out.

Today, we discussed some more when the next trial run of the samples should be. I decided that it should be performed on Monday, because we don’t have enough resources at the moment to perform the procedure at the moment. So, I suggested that I should make some more chemicals and follow Mark around in the lab so I could learn some more. Well, I definitely learned a lot more.

Derrick, Patty, and Mark taught me some more concerning sterile technique. Well, the 1X PBS solutions I made weren’t exactly the cleanest solutions, because they were unfiltered and teeming with bacteria and minerals and other “disgusting” substances. So I learned the art of filtering out solutions. They use a cup like device and a vacuum, and then the vacuum removes the unhealthy from the healthy, and the health goes into the bottle, and the grimy goes into the path of the vacuum. Really, it was rather interesting. The procedure was very quick for all three bottles. I thought it would take hours. However, it requires a little watching because the filters need to constantly working with a solution, or the filter will dry out and become futile.

Then Derrick and Patty came back with some autoclaved graduated cylinders, beakers, test tubes, etc. I had the “privilege” of actually covering them with foil and placing a small piece of tape on top of it. I don’t really understand the point of the tape though. It looks more like an organization tool or such an accessory. I don’t really know, I’ll admit.

Tiredness is a rather interesting quality. It’s there when I don’t need it, and it’s not there when I need it. I feel like I need to get some sleep or something. Coffee sounds great right now…what am I saying?

As of now, I’m reading some more research papers, including the ones written by Dr. Camenisch so I would try to procure some support from previous research. It’s not easy being an intern, let alone a researcher.

TV SHOW UPDATE!

hey everyone! The intern TV show has been updated to week 4 now!!

Filming for the show begins next week!


look under "Do you have what it takes to be the best intern?"

Official Movie Night? Yes? NO? maybe?

Hey Intern Buddies!!

I work at the Movie Theatres and I get free movies and popcorn (or at least that's what they tell me, lol), so I'm thinking about doing an official movie night, which will probably bring us closer as a group (not that we're not close enough now, but...). I don't know everyone's schedule, but I'm sure we can all find a day that we can all get together. Now, I don't think I can get us all into the what I like to call the "Not Cheap" Theatres, because I'm still trying to figure out all the perks of working in the theatre. BUT I'm pretty sure I can get us all into the theatres I work at, I'm going to make sure its ok on Thursday. So let me know if we think this is a good idea or not.

Mon-Ning

PS. The movies at the theatres where I work at are:

1. Georgia Rule
2. The Invisible
3. Next
4. Fractured
5. Vacancy
6. Perfect Stranger
7. Are We Done Yet?
8. Blades of Glory
9. Meet the Robinsons
10. Premonition
11. 300
12. Bridge to Terabithia


PS. PS. Movies might change by Friday, because we get new movies every weekend.. or at least I think we do.


UPDATE!!!!
New Movies: In the Land of Women and Disturbia!!

Wednesday....the halfway point....

The end of the week is almost near! Lab work began immediately in Dr. Camenisch's lab in order to begin another trial of the immunoassays (also known as histochemistries according to Sophia Lalani, a graduate student from the College of Medicine). I've broken my caffeine detox regimen. I hate cold showers, and I keep getting tired, not alert. Boy...I really do need to get some sleep.



Anyway, the histochemistry began at its usual 8:00 A.M. Well, anyway, the first steps into the procedure went very smoothly, as it seemed. I can't really observe at the molecular level. Anyway, I was pretty busy, but I also enjoyed my participation in the research lab.



Journal club was also interesting. I gave my presentation on how MEKK4 was important in embryonic heart development. It definitely has participation, for its absence presented congenital heart defects, the most frequently diagnosed developmental disorder within the first year of life. Current treatment is just to treat the phenotypic traits, such as surgery to correct valve defects and medicine to treat metabolic disorders. The cause is currently unknown, but they hypothesized that there are changes in the molecular program in development of the physical traits of the heart cell. They think that the defects occur during gastrulation, when the embryonic organs are developed. The cranial portion contains the endocardial and myocardial portions. When these two parts combine, they create what is called the cardiac crescent. The cardiac crescent is an incomplete layer of cardiac muscle surrounded by endothelial tube, which is then separated by the extracellular matrix. It also was associated with a genetic disorder called Noonan Syndrome. It's often called "the male version of Turner's Syndrome", but it's also found in females. It manifests in several organ systems, not just the cardiovascular system. To return to relevance, MEKK4 is actually a Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Kinase Kinase (MAP3K). No, I wasn't trying to be funny or redundant by repeating the word "kinase". Mark said it, I didn't. MEKK4 is activated by growth factors or stress and actually activates the MAP2Ks and the MAPKs, which are all found in the endocardial cushions. They discovered that MEKK4 was necessary, but was not the only participant in valvuloseptal formation. Further data can provided that MEKK4 was a possible GATA4-responsive gene, and was expressed at day ten of embryonic development, within the edothelial and mesenchymal cells of cushions. MEKK4, however, was detected much less at E10.5, which probably displayed some degree of stability.



Translation: MEKK4 is important for us, and mice.



Alex....

Blog for the 2nd Week

Thank you for a very good Journal Club today.
Please put your blog for the second week here. Remember to post how your skills, content knowledge, and self confidence are growing!

Marti

Sorry I missed out on the fun!!

Hey All,

I was planning on being there for journal club today, but had something came up over in the office right as I was walking out the door. I'm sorry I missed out, but I'll be looking forward to next week!!

Have a great end of the week and I'll see you then.

-Kevin

NEW JOURNAL CLUB DAY

Hi everybody! You just heard this, but I'd like to remind you that journal club next week will be on FRIDAY instead of WEDNESDAY. It will still be from 11am-1pm just on the different day. Can't wait to see you then!

Your pal,
Logan

P.S. I thought you would like a pretty picture (-:

OOOH!

My responsibilities in the lab this week have increased significantly! I'm really excited about the protein determination and gel electrophoresis procedures that Gladys and Elizabeth are showing me, because it means that I will be able to carry out these experiments on my own. I finally feel like I can truly contribute to the day's work instead of just observing all the experiments.
Today I made the gel for the Western Blot. At first Gladys kept an eye on me to make sure that I was mixing the solution for the separating gel and the stacking gel correctly, but once I proved that I was capable of doing this job efficiently, she allowed me to do the next few gels on my own. It makes me feel special to be designated the Official Gel Maker. I also got the opportunity to load different samples of Right Cortex (from the rat brains) protein into the gel compartments. It was a tricky process, but I understood how to do this after a few tries.
Tomorrow I will start making the gel for electrophoresis as soon as I arrive at the lab. It sounds like it will be a busy day tomorrow, so I am looking forward to the other things that I am going to learn.
Gladys has ordered 25 rats for her experiments (to be started in a few weeks), and she says that she will show me the process of performing surgery to inject the metabolites into their brains. I am definitely looking forward to seeing this process. Gladys has also told me that the rats are friendly....no worries, Andrew.

Andrew: My life as an intern-week two

June 11, 2007

Today is supposed to be the busiest day ever, but I had little time to do it in. Shawn was about to leave the next day to get married and Sarah will leave in two days to go to Houston. So that meant I would be working with Kylee for a week or two. So, the day began as I went to go and perform the Trypan Blue assay on the UROtsa cells in order to do a dosing assay. After counting the number of cells, I added 174 ul of that into six 6-well plates. Fun times. So after doing so, I had to wait a day or two in order for the cells to be confluent so I can dose them. While the waiting process took place, I read over research papers. So that assay took a while and it was time for me to go to lunch because I have training later that day.

At lunch, we ate at UMC so we are not late to the chemical safety training. So we went to the fifth floor of the building where the safety training was held. We each picked up a blue folder, two handouts and walked in. There, a room full of college students and more people I don't know were sitting. So the extensive training of three hours pretty much sums up the rest of the day. I have laughing attacks often, and that disorder was triggered when Greg said something really funny during the lecture. I was seriously on the floor laughing, and people hated me in the room. Not really but we all get the idea. Pretty much my day was really good and educational. I learned so much from the training that can be applied to my real lab situations. Most of this safety training is common sense. By the way, the quiz is really easy...hopefully we all passed with 100%!

Okay talk to everyone later. Remember, safety in the lab = good times. =)



~A. Vo
(to be continued...)

June 12, 2007

My life as an intern has been an amazing one so far. I am learning new things everyday and doing a lot of experiments over again which really makes me good at those. Today was no different. I have been feeding my cells for about two weeks now and the general steps I have down. This is all from memory, which is a good thing. Also, I was working with Sarah and found out how to make serum-free solution to feed the cells with because we are running low on it. To make it, we needed cell culture supplement, which include insulin and Hydrocortisone, and MDEM F12 media. Then we mixed them together with plasminosin and antibiotic and antimicotic. So after the mixing, we filtered it to make it sterile. Then after finishing this solution, I went to lunch.

Lunch was good times also. We went to Chipotle and they sell gigantic burritos. Logan ended up eating one and a half burritos, which meant he won the eating challenge for the show. Lunch was fun, except for the part where I had to ride the Cat Tran back to BIO5 by myself. But on that tran ride, I saw the person Mon-Ning loves, Longboard Dude. It was a socially awkward moment because I was conversing with our joyful college student/restaurant worker. I was thinking about the incident that Mon-Ning had with him earilier last week...and I could not stop laughing so he thought I was socially inept. Actually, this might have been a more joyful time if Mon-Ning and Tiffany were here too. Anyway, I got off the tran and headed to the College of Pharmacy.

I talked to Sarah and Kylee about my schedule and things of that sort and they came up with a plan. I am going to complete what Sarah started because she will be out for a week. So this made this even more exciting. I am actually going to be doing an experiment by myself!!! I have always waited for this moment. I am going to be performing many MTT assays which really is dosing cells with arsenic and hydrogen peroxide. I will be testing these at different time intervals (ie: 30 min, 1 hr, 2, hr, 24 hr, etc) Well I will keep you all posted on this situation in the lab and with Mon-Ning's lover!




~A. Vo
(to be continued....)


June 13, 2007

Being an intern is definitely harder than most people think. Most people think that an intern just learns all day and do the dirty cleaning and things of that sort. It is really interesting. So today, I showed up at about 8:11 am and from there, my mentor Kylee told me to go warm up my serum-enriched and serum-free solutions in the water bath for about 15 minutes. So I did that and prepared for my journal club presentation while waiting. After that fifteen minute wait, I went up to floor two to go ahead and feed my UROtsa cells. It is pretty easy now and I can feed my cells without taking out my notebook for the protocol! Amazing! So after that I walked over to journal club.

Journal Club was full of joyful times. I presented today about the UROtsa cells becoming models of the human urothelium. More info from the presentation will come later. I loved to present because I really like the lime light. I was a little nervous but I hope I was easy to understand and not repetitive. After journal club, I went back to the lab to perform another dosing assay. This time it was to take care of Sarah's cells while she is gone. So really, I had a full schedule today but it was fun for the most part. I will keep you all updated! By the way, the filming for the TV show is going to happen sometime in the next two weeks. Can't wait!


~A. Vo
(to be continued...)



June 14, 2007

June 14th, what an...average day. There was really nothing that was different except that I messed up an assay...but what can you expect from me? I am only learning everyday and sometimes I think that letting me do things on my own might be too soon. So this assay involved incubating cells for four hours after dosing them with arsenic and hyrdrogen peroxide. So, the MTT assay went wrong when I was making solutions to add to the cells...after the four hours of incubation. I put in a whole separate ingredient rather than the correct one...so big time mistake. I think Kylee was mad so I tried not to mess up again...hahaha. But really that was my whole day...the MTT assay. This assay takes a llllllllloooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnggggggggg (long) time.

Lunch was no different except Logan called and thought Mon-Ning and I are in a relationship...hahahahaha. Anyway, Mon-Ning and I are just friends for the record. I was so exhausted after lunch because of the assay....and I had a six hour plate waiting right in the incubator along with a 24 hour plate. BAD times...but there's no problem here...I just don't want to mess up again. I fear there will be a punishment this time...hahaha. So I went home.

Until tomorrow.


~A. Vo
(to be continued...)



June 15, 2007

Wow! The second week of work is actually over! Surprisingly I am doing more independent work which is probably because I am doing repetitive assays. Today was quite intriguing. I am TIRED and definitely WORN-OUT. Now we can all say that I am WAY past my prime. So today, I was finishing up the MTT assay with the 24 hour plates. I didn't mess up today! Joyful times! So after the MTT, I went out to lunch. The only people at lunch were Mon-Ning, Logan, Kim and I. Shiana, Tiffany, and Alex went to UMC due to time constraints and Greg and Daniel got the day off. So after lunch I went back to the lab. Kim was telling us that she was "inspected" by the chemical hygiene people and she was pretty scared.

So when I arrived at the lab at 1:17 pm, I entered in an empty room...I was pretty much freaking out...haha not really but I did go to the bathroom and back to occupy time. So, when Andrew (who is going to grad school in a week) walked in, we did a radiation wipe test. So that test involves wiping eight spots that might possibly be contaminated by radiation. So the test is still running and I am about to go scrape cells! Fun times with these cells. After that, I can pretty much go home and that is good times...going to get a haircut hahahahaha. Actually that is really random. But anyway everyone have a fun, hilarious, stress-free weekend!

chemical hygiene training = informative times


Highlight of the week~ The hilarious times in the joyful, college student filled room of chemical hygiene training! I would not stop laughing because of Greg's "wise" comments about what one of the lecturers said...the lecturer agreed with him too!

Lecture man- "Does anybody know what day mercury spills happen?"

Greg- "Thursday..."

Everybody else in room- "umm....Tuesday? Wednesday!! Saturday!"

Greg- "Monday, 7:30 am."

Andrew- laughing uncontrollably

Mon-Ning- "Greg! Look what you did!"

Lecture man- "No...Friday afternoons between 3-5."




~A. Vo

(to be continued...)

They're Impressed!

Shiana, Tiffany, Kim, Mon-Ning, Logan, Greg, Alex, Daniel, and Andrew,

All of you should know that you are impressing people all over campus! We’ve crossed paths with many at the UA who have interacted with you individually or as a group, and the comments we hear are universal – “These interns are bright and a pleasure to work with!”

Congratulations! We look forward to hearing about your internship experiences in the coming weeks.

Norine

Norine Houtz, Ph.D., Director, Workforce Development BIO5 Institute

Tuesday....another busy day....

Boy, there has been a LOT to do today in the lab. I've been up and at it for a while, and I'm so busy. For instance, Mark and I were doing PCR and trying to figure out a plan that I'll have to do while Mark is gone to D.C., which is in about two weeks. I guess graduate students do need a vacation, because they have lives too. I'm also working on my lecture, which is just basically trying to organize what I want to tell the other interns. On top of that, my brain is sending me urgent rest telegrams despite the fact that I actually took a nap as soon as I got home and slept at midnight. Boy, my brain can be awfully strange at times. It's better than what happens with me and coffee. I get so hyper and poorly focused during the day, and not exactly at my best at night. Yikes...anyway....Sophia came by today, which was rather interesting. She and Mark went off to McDonald's. Mark's pretty lethargic from the fatty foods that come from that multinational greasy spoon. Oh well...I bought from there, too. It's pretty good, but kind of hard to swallow. I don’t know why. Anyway, I’m currently waiting for the results from the gel electrophoresis. The samples already went through the thermocycler and took about two hours just to actually work. Fortunately, it wouldn’t be four hours due to the fact that there are two thermocycler heads attached to the machine.

Currently, Mark and I think that we should continue with our idea that we should do a second trial of the immunoassays, so that we could perfect it and try not to be careless when we actually perform the procedure. It’s a pretty good idea. I know I’ve written about this several times, but I guess it’s important that we chronicle every moment of my daily lab experience. We’ve modified the protocol a few times, and actually got really promising results, despite the multiple changes that occurred during the experiment. Today, I think Mark and I will choose out some slides before we leave so I can perform the experiment as soon as I come in tomorrow. We really need to get this done quickly. I’ll prepare most of the materials, and clean out most of the stuff as soon as I come in so we can try to eliminate as much contaminants as I can.

Afterwards, Dr. Camenisch and the other graduate students brought in four mice that have been injected with ketamine. Dr. Camenisch is currently studying the effects of mutant DNA and recombinant DNA in mice pigments. He injected them into the ears of the mice and observed them, with one ear being tested and the other being the control. I thought that was pretty interesting. They're probably awake by now, as the ketamine's effects are diminishing, but it's interesting how the graduate students and I can observe their physical traits.

Alex…..

Looks like I got the bad case of the Mondays.....

It was a rather bleak day today in Dr. Camenisch's lab. Mark was in and out with as Mass-Spec and Laurel was out to Virginia, then possibly to Canada. Anyway, I'm getting my presentation ready for Journal Club Wednesday, and also presented my initial findings of the first test run today to Dr. Camenisch. He was impressed, and told me to continue. The slides definitely definitely did illuminate very well, but Mark and I concurred to the fact that we should definitely work on getting the fine details of the generated images, which may mean I may have to practice the procedure some more, which is not bad. Tomorrow, we're making plans to perform polymerase chain reaction, and then actually get a bunch of stuff done. Today, though, there's the Chemical Safety Training that the interns are going to be sent to. I heard from the graduate students in the Camenisch lab that it wasn't too bad, but they'll make you pay attention with a lot of handouts. I just hope I don't die of boredom and over-attentiveness.

Well, being a research intern requires a lot of patience and a lot of attention, especially in the monthly lectures. Currently, I am required to take a course that I have to take in order to continue my research and get my stipend at the University of Arizona. First, I dealt with listening for an hour-and-a-half to one instructor describing the various procedures for carcinogens, irritants, pyrophorics, and other chemicals, even the combustibles. There is so much trouble for pregnant women with teratogens, because these things can affect their unborn children. Poor kids...anyway....they also describe the effectiveness of "personal protective equipment." I guess it's very important. Lab coats and rubberized aprons are available, fortunately. Closed-toe shoes are definitely a requirement in the lab, which is supposed to be common sense. Boy, they even provide armored sleeves and eye protection. They even have safety glasses. That's kind of interesting. Then again, I'm supposed to know that.

Another thing I've learned is that Risk Management actually performs experiments. That's weird. They dealt with the effectiveness of safetyt glasses, splash goggles, and face shields. Face shields seem to provide the best protection for the laboratory, even though they are rather large and cumbersome. Boy, these lectures are so hard to pay attention to. At least the lectures came with a PowerPoint presentation for each one. They obviously have a lot to be desired. I guess it's popular because: one...it's a requirement...and two: the lecture only appears once a month.

They also show us pictures of a gas-filling facility that actually got trashed due to poor handling of such equipment. Hopefully, I'll know better. Handling the gas cylinders do require appropriate techniques and tools in order to handle them. Fume hoods also work. They use a vacuum to remove the harmful gases. That's good and reasonable, I guess. They're also tested every year to be effective. There's also eyewashes and showers. The water must be very dirty, sitting in those pipes for a while. I just think it's gross, that's all...but I do think it is better than the chemicals in the eyes. They're accessible, I hope. Researchers are putting three square feeet, at least, for easy access to the shower. Oh well...they're also describing compatibility. At least the other interns are with me, or I would be bored out of my skull. Bored, bored, bored!

Boy, I wish I got some coffee. I could have gone to the local Starbucks near the BIO5 Institute or to the coffee shop in the medical school. I love a caramel frappuccino right now. I really do need the caffeine. They're so tasty. Yummy! I'm getting so hyper just thinking about it! Tasty! XD Sadly, I can't really focus when I'm hyper. I'll be a kid with Attention Deficit Disorder. Really...no joke. That's too bad. I really need one right now. Aw...gee...I like caffeine....

Putting a can of ether in a Kenmore refrigerator is a really bad idea. Vapors from the can caused an explosion, which caused a fire. Fortunately, there were no secondary explosions, or casualties for that matter.

Okay....it's break time now. Logan and Daniel are working on their Rubik's cubes. They must be pretty busy with those puzzles. Oh well....ther'es another lecture coming up. He's currently describing procedures to dispose hazardous and biohazardous waste. They're giving us homework assignments! Oh....my....the lecturers seem to be down-to-earth. Well...at least we get handouts. I like handouts. They're so much fun. He seems to do a lot with the handling of chemicals. I am not into the disposal industry, but I guess it's all part of research. Boy, the disposing groups do have a lot of trouble with chemicals. Once again, he's very down-to-earth, which is good. When disposing stuff, just avoid glass. They said it, I didn't. I guess the Chemical Safety Training wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Some people just overreact nowadays. I don't know why...I really don't know why...anyway, that was my Monday.

Alex....

Alex..........

Week two of the show!

Interns still left in the show- Logan (winner of eating challenge), Shiana, Tiffany, Mon-Ning, Alex. Greg, Kim and Daniel...

Eliminated- Andrew =( sad times but these are what the votes choose


Well for the summary of week two's episode...check the post of Do you have what it takes to be the best intern?

Kim Checking In!

Hello Everyone!

I have only been in the lab two days this week (because of UofA Orientation, a tedious and unfortunate process...) , but Aysen, the grad student I am shadowing, has already taught me so much. I've helped her run Western blots, DNA amplification and purification, and protein purifications so far. We are working on one of her projects with flagella, the part of E. coli which allows it to be motile. Presently, we are trying to isolate and amplify a specific protein in the flagella with our procedures. On Thursday, Aysen was busy collecting mucin, a protein found in the intestinal mucus lining in a variety of mammals (eg. cow), which we will test for its affinity to the flagella protein with the Western Blot. The first day I started Aysen was running three different procedures at the same time, one of which I had never heard of and the other two with which I was only vaguely familiar. It was intimidating at first, trying to jot down everything and make sense of it, but the thick stack of papers I was assigned to read is helping with that. I just read a research paper describing the traits and behavior of different pathogenic strains of E. coli and am on to another stack of papers of how pathogens in general invade hosts. I also gave my presentation on the research paper I was assigned and had some technical difficulties, but it worked out in the end. (Hint : Powerpoints should be saved on the desktop.)

When I first started annotating this paper, I was really just pushing myself through the sentences, word by word - looking each term up in the dictionary; it was tedious and frustrating. Finally, I mustered some courage and asked Aysen for some advice on how to get through my first big reference paper(although I was sure it was pretty basic material) and she really lessened my work load while helping me understand the content more. Referencing multiple sources (wikipedia!google!mentors!) and focusing on sections of the paper Aysen suggested helped so much!

This week was a huge stepping stone of learning for me. I'm still reading lots and expect to much more. Getting acquainted with the lab was challenging, but it is fun working with all these new machines and such. I am also so grateful for the background with the research papers because today at my Freshman Orientation I mentioned to my advisor, Dr. Slack, my interest in research and he actually showed me a paper one of his students had recently written and I felt far less intimidated by diving into college science. Next week, I hope to be able to run amplifications and purifications on my own and get a little more responsibility. I'm having a great time in the lab (INDEED, Daniel) and with the other interns and am really looking forward to our weeks together!

P.S. I need help attatching my powerpoint presentation to this and also Andrew how do you make certain words different colors? It adds so much to your words.