Student Research at Duke

So I haven’t written in this blog in quite some time. School tends to do that. Anyways, research is still going well. Lately I’ve been working on replacing a color marker with another color marker so that we can eventually insert it into our in vitro cultures of MEF cells. We’re now trying to figure out the cellular pathway that leads to the drastic phenotype that occurs from conditionally knocking out the PI3K gene in both sensory neurons and in all neurons. Perhaps it is retrograde signaling..perhaps not…but we shall see!

I also find it fascinating how much easier and more enjoyable Bio 118 at Duke (genetics and molecular bio- one of those really feared pre-med/bio major classes due to the challenging material) has been as a result of my experiences in this lab. Also, my past experience in the cytogenetics lab at Magee Women’s Hospital under Dr. Surti, who is an incredible woman and researcher, has helped prepare me as well. I find genetics and molecular/cell biology to be so fascinating- combined with my interest in neuroscience, I find it fascinating just how resilient the human body is and what the brain is capable of. It’s astounding to think of all the reactions that must occur in order to keep our body functioning and how many different pathways there are to ensure that a certain end is reached. For instance, I am a vegetarian, and in the past I have not been very conscientious about consuming enough protein. Even then, my body still compensated for this, which I find amazing.

In general, I really love how my classes and my lab experience have all overlapped. Organic chemistry is so relevent to genetics and molecular biology (which is why I’m really looking forward to biochemistry- I think it’s going to be a really fun class for me), and my developmental psychology class has taught me a lot about major milestones of development and how certain things (such as hormones and whatnot) must be present at certain times as well as how detrimental teratogens are at some points in utero and not at others.

In addition to this, my EMS experience has helped me appreciate the whole human body, tying all these courses together. (For example, we learned in orgo today how ethanol in excess is metabolized to a toxic product because the body is overwhelmed and cannot fully convert it to the end product.) I’ve reached the point where I see how organic chem and cell biology all come together to produce medical emergencies. I think that being able to keep sight of how all these topics interrelate and how essential it is to know these biochemical pathways in order to really understand medicine later will help me be a better doctor in the future.

When I was a little kid, about 3 or 4 years old, I used to go to “work” every day. When I was at “work” I did several things- build houses from Legos, make structures out of clay, and oddly enough steal my dad’s old stethoscope and try to perform patient assessments on my dolls. I even went as far as medicating them with Tylenol I’d steal from the medicine cabinet which my mother later accused me of consuming myself, not understanding that it was for my dolls. Sheeesh.

As you can see, yes, I was an odd child, but more importantly, I’ve wanted to enter the medical field ever since I was 3 or 4. My dad is a physician that now heads a pathology lab. Back in the day, he’d bring me into work and show me cool stuff like tapeworms in jars that were extracted from people or microscopes. I was an easily amused child. When I finally hit middle school and high school, my science courses increased my interest in medicine, making me like it for reasons other than “I want to be like my dad.” Community service is something that I’ve always held as being extremely valuable, and since I’m good at science and love it, the medical field suits me.

I started working in a lab the summer after 10th grade. I’ve spent time now both in a clinical lab and a wet lab. I’ve found that I enjoy both, but professionally, I can see myself having a clinical lab.

Before applying to this program, I was more persuaded to go on a straight MD track. Now, I’m not so sure. I like research…but I also like interacting with patients. I’m contemplating the MD/PhD track more seriously now (I’ve tossed the idea around before), and if I don’t end up with a PhD, I still plan on doing research with clinical data. My father pointed out that this is definitely feasible too.

We’ll see what happens. Until then, I’m staying in Fan Wang’s Cell Biology lab next semester as it has been a rewarding experience this summer, and I’m going to continue doing Duke EMS (and possibly shadowing more people..).

The theme of last week’s seminars/movie was responsible conduct in research. We were each asked to reflect on the week.

I found Colleen Denny’s lecture to be helpful in setting up the foundation of what responsible conduct means. However, since I had to seek IRB approval for a psychology experiment I conducted in high school and have volunteered in a hospital for some time and had to deal with HIPAA, I didn’t gain anything new from the lecture (which is fine; I’m sure there were people that learned something from it). The lecture brought to mind the research topic I chose for our end-of-year presentations/papers in AP Euro senion year- I chose to look at medical experiments conducted by the Nazis. Colleen alluded to this.

Mengele, or “the angel of death,” experimented with the effects of chloroform, dwarves, twins, and gas chambers/crematoriums. You can read about what Eva Kor had to tell CNN about her experience here. Clauberg and others were concerned with chemical tests and x-rays and their effect on reproductive organs and also on one-shot sterilization. Clauberg also experimented with castration. Oberheuser (a female) inflicted deliberate wounds to try to study the healing process (supposedly)- she simulated combat wounds and would rub foreign materials into inflicted wounds. She also studied children, dissecting them to understand anatomy better. Dr. Brandt, Hitler’s own physician, began euthanasia with Schumann…except in this twisted instance, the people never consented to being killed. Rather, different people in nursing homes, asylums, and hospitals were deemed “useless eaters” and murdered. Dr. Kremer studied the ffects of starvation and kept a diary of his rather detailed notes on everyday life in a concentration camp, including the gassing process. The German Air Force conducted freezing and thawing experiments as well as high altitude experiments. Regeneration experiments were also conducted as well as research on the effects of infectious diseases such as malaria, typhoid, hepititis, and TB, incendiary bombs, and chemical warfare.

After all this, the Nuremberg Code was written, which included things Colleen talked about, such as informed consent, proper qualifications on the researcher’s part, animal trials occurring first, an avoidance of suffering, and the opportunity for a participant to end a study at any time. Clearly, these all arose because of the misconduct during WWII. However, I still find it surprising that there aren’t a set of rules anywhere that dictate how research is to be conducted responsibly.

The movie And the Band Played On had a definite impact on me. (It was about the AIDS outbreak during Reagan’s time and the mishandling and misconduct which happened while addressing the need to figure out what was causing it). However, I found myself even more outraged at the Reagan administration than with Robert Gallo. How could an administration just stand by while an epidemic broke out and not even provide money to help fund research?? I was shocked at how little the CDC had to work with. Reaganomics was bad enough- he severely hurt the economy with that- but not even bothering to mention a disease because it only affected homosexuals?! That’s ridiculous. There were many other people in the movie I would have liked to smack some sense into due to their stubborn nature and underestimation of what was to come. I’m sure that the movie was biased in its presentation of what really happened though. Robert Gallo’s misconduct made me question why some people go into science. I used to put researchers on pedestals thinking they all truly care about what they’re finding out and that other researchers can appreciate the significance of what one may find. Granted, that was when I was more idealistic, and I know now that that is certainly not the case.

McClay’s lecture contained stories of the ridiculous measures some reseachers have gone to in order to make themselves seem more important (such as coloring in fur with a marker..who does that? And why would someone supposedly smart use a *marker?* Why wouldn’t they use..I don’t know..hair dye or something less likely to get them caught? Silly..). I was surprised to learn from him that holding reagents in the lab was unethical while holding all notes in the lab was actually ethical. I feel like we should learn more about these types of rules..frankly, I had no idea.

In other news, Andrew and I presented at our lab meeting on Friday. It was a good experience that will help for our chalk talk this week. Speaking of which, I’m going to go work on now.

My mice have died yet again soo I still lack samples to do the project I was supposed to do…apparently, the mutation we gave them does not bode well for living very long. Because of this, what I’ll be doing this summer has been slightly modified.

I’ve gotten better at taking pictureson the microscope, so I came in and did that again this morning. We finally figured out what we were doing wrong during TUNEL staining (for apoptosis) and so it finally worked!! That was very exciting because after doing it 3 times, it would be even more annoying to do it yet again.

Today I’m using statistical analysis and some program on the computer to try to detect a difference in epithelial innervation between the control and mutants. Hopefully, it will show something- that would be exciting. I’ll probably also be checking out limbs today as well, which I haven’t done yet. Oh, and I get to run a western blot…something I used to run all the time last summer when I worked in a renal fibrosis lab under Dr. Liu at the University of Pittsburgh, so it should go smoothly.

In other news, I had my first EMT shift on Thursday night and then another 24 hr one over the weekend. I got to play with equipment and the radio and learn lots of building names that I would never, ever go to otherwise that are on campus/near campus. It was fun. Sadly, I still have yet to receive my first call, which is highly disappointing. Whenever it comes, I hope it’s an interesting one.

I’m presenting at our lab meeting on Friday along with Andrew to help us prepare for our chalk talks next week. I still need to figure out exactly how much can realistically be done this summer when my mice keep dying…I’m talking to my mentor about it today and tomorrow. Hopefully we come up with something! Back to getting ready for Friday’s presentation and then to do some more things…

So far, this week in lab has been interesting to say the least. I’m still waiting for living mice…our mice keep dying, which is rather unfortunate. However, I’ve learned more staining techniques. I’ve also played with the microscope as well.

The microscope was frustrating at first because I was asked to take pictures of whisker innervation in mice whisker pads. In the beginning, I couldn’t figure out when I was looking at a whisker, let alone a good whisker that I should be taking a picture of. After a couple hours, though, I got used to it. I’ve surprised myself because I’m actually finding it fun to find them and compare them between the two groups we are looking at (it’s even more exciting realizing that there seems to be a difference between the two as well).

One staining that I’ve been trying to do refuses to work. Yikes. We’re trying for the third time tomorrow…hopefully, it will work then. Other mishaps at work include when I accidentally dropped a pair of tweezers in the trash can, when I accidentally flipped over a slide midway through collecting sampes on the sectioning machine with it (oops), and when I accidentally spilled ice all over the floor. In the last case, my mentor, who was with me, chuckled and taught me the art of sliding the ice gracefully under the ice machine so that no one notices. We’ve also been getting a lot more free food thanks to our lab buying stuff from various companies, so that’s nice, too.

I enjoyed the seminar we attended on metabolic systems. If what we covered is any indication of what is taught in biochem, I think I’m going to enjoy that class. I’m a vegetarian, and it made me realize the importance of taking multivitamins since I don’t consume meat. There are so many things that could possibly go wrong. However, the human body is amazing at its ability to compensate for disruptions of various processes and maintain some sort of homeostasis.

My time thus far with my lab and the research fellows program has been enjoyable and productive. There have been setbacks, such when the brilliant people who painted my room accidentally painted my door shut so I had to wait outside of it for an hour before I could get in. However, I did eventually get in and unpacked and here I am.

I’m working in Dr. Wang’s lab in the cell biology department along with Andrew Lyu, a fellow research fellow. Last week I learned how to do immunostaining of slides with PGP 9.5. I also watched my mentor remove embryos from a pregnant mouse and then extract each embryo’s brain and prepare it for sectioning. I’ve used the sectioning machine, which is -22 degree Celsius and therefore, as you can easily imagine, very, verrry cold. Cleaning it is probably my least favorite activity since the blade is very cold and my glove became mildly stuck to it. But what is research without a few sacrifices?

The people in my lab are amusing, friendly, and helpful. I was glad to learn they all enjoy free things (like food) as much as I do, and I enjoyed some breakfast and ice cream in a day thanks to a vendor fair. My mentor has been very helpful thus far. He presented last week at our lab meeting. Prior to starting work this summer I only had a vague idea of what I was doing since I wasn’t handed any papers yet. However, I received about 14 along with video clips and powerpoint presentations, so I spent a better portion of a few workdays just reading and letting the information sink in.

My specific project will be using advillin-cre mutant mice to determine where the problem occurs in their sensory pathway- is it localized to their central or peripheral nervous system, or it is generalized? In particular, I’ll be looking at limbs, whisker pads, trigeminal ganglions, and the spinal cords of these mice. I’ll also be staining to see if synapses have actually formed (sometimes, there may be branching of the sensory neurons but no synaptic formation occurs). I’m excited to see what this research holds. I’ll be sure to post more as time goes on explaining some of the aforementioned things. However, I don’t have much else to say about that now because I have yet to start on this specific project, mainly due to the silliness of someone in the mice room who decided that the mutant mouse was dead when it wasn’t yet dead and threw it in with the dead mice without killing it (?!?)… I suppose the said person didn’t realize we were making mutants? That’s another thing with the mice I’m looking at- they’re born normal but then their limbs become oddly formed, and they do not grow normally. Death usually sets in around 13 days.

I have some really great photos of the lab, but I’m still not sure how to post them since we apparently need a URL and the file size is too big when I try uploading normally. Hmm..hopefully I figure that out soon because I’d love to share these pictures!

Oh, and in other news, I recently discovered that my lab has lots of Current Biology, Cell, and Neuron journals sitting around…which now means I can be productive while waiting for things to run/wash/whatever. I read some interesting articles today in Current Biology, one which was about how they found birds in different cities have actually changed their songs to compensate for ambient noise in the city, both in terms of frequency and length. It made me ponder just how big of an effect things we do have on other species. Just some food for thought. More to come later.