Friday, Week 5

This week I finally got some results! I was able to get the Rhodamine Phalloidin to work with the Immuno. It ends up I have to do RP first, then Immuno with no Antigen Retrival. So I got to start the two- and four-hour animals. I'm not seeing much difference between the vehicle and MK, though. I think I'm going to have to look at sixteen and twenty-four houur animals to see anything changing. Hopefully, I will have time to do that. Anyway, I'm just glad I got SOMETHING to work.

Friday's Events

Today we are having a lab visitation day. First I go to this lab where they are doing something about cocaine addicts. My second lab is dealing with anti-cancer drugs, and my third lab is a "typical cellular and molecular biology lab" looking at the effects of cancer treatments on the brain. Sounds pretty fun, huh? The only thing is I have absolutely no idea where I am going. Wish me luck getting there!

Friday, Week 4

I did get to view the slides so I could see whether it was the animal or Immuno staining that ws blocking the F-actin staining. It ended up being the Immuno staining. Now I am working on modifying the Immuno process to work with the F-actin staining. I am trying four different things: running F-actin before Immuno, Immuno minus BSA then F-actin, Immuno minus TX100 then F-actin, and less processing time. I think the F-actin before Immuno or Immuno minus BSA are the only ones that will work. Hopefully something will work so I can have results of some sort to present.

Stuff About the CERTL Research...Thingy

So okay. You already know the basic idea behind the topic I am researching, and you already know what I am hoping to find. But you can see other people's work by going to http://certl.org/ and clicking on the right where it says Summer Student Symposium. I am working in the same lab as one of the other students. His name is Curt. His blog can be found at http://5centpen.blogspot.com
So check out these other people's stuff!

Friday, Week 3

This week has been great! I have really gotten to working on my research topic. I had completed my first set of brain sections. I had to sidetrack a bit, however, because the RhPh staining did not work in my first set of animals. So now I have to see whether it ws the animal or immuno staining that caused the failure. I am going back to the lab this afternoon to see if I can't finish up thebunch of sections I used for that. Hopefully, I can go back to my main research project on Monday.

Happy Fourth of July!

Friday, Week 2

Okay, now I can tell you all about my project. My research project is titled "Neonatal Brain Injury: Caspase Induction and Association with F-actin". I am helping determine how calcium affects the neonatal brain. I am specifically observing structural changes using several different markers, including F-actin. I hope to find that F-actin changes its structure as neurons die due to widespread apoptosis in the neonatal brain.

I've just started the labeling process which does take a good bit of waiting, so I have not been able to view much under the microscope yet! Come back later, and I'll keep you posted on my progress.