Student Research at Duke

Today concluded a weeks worth of seminars focused on responsible conduct in research.  The movies, speeches, and articles that I viewed in the past week convinced me that all forms of research, not just those involving human subjects, significantly affect society and for that reason ethics in the laboratory is a requisite.

The first seminar began by detailing appropriate protocol for research involving human subjects.  At first, I was having a difficult time understanding how such suggestions could apply to my work with a mouse cell line.  However, as the week unfolded, I quickly began to understand how negligence in my work could negatively affect individuals.  This first became apparent when I read the article about an investigator who lied about his research in order to secure funding.  Such an act places money that could be better used to advance human knowledge, and therefore better society, in hands where this will not occur.  Furthermore, to turn science into a competition among investigators in search of notoriety often hinders the release of knowledge in a timely manner, as evidenced in the movie “And the Band Played On.”  Additionally, negligence in research could lead to incorrect conclusions that, once applied to society, could be detrimental.  Improved knowledge of the world allows us to better interact with it, and obviously incorrect conclusions could be very detrimental.

This set of seminars really emphasized to me the importance of ethical research.  Even though it may seem that the slightest negligence or alteration of data could do no harm, this small change could adversely affect individuals in various ways.  As a scientist, it is important to always be aware of this and to not succumb to negligence in a rush to publish. 

Sorry I have not updated in a while, my computer was being repaired making it difficult to blog.  Anyway, I spent the majority of last week conducting three simultaneous assays that were a part of one general experiment in which I disrupted the TGFb signaling pathway by inhibiting the ligand receptor.  Through a Western blot, transwell migration, and thymidine incorporation assay, I was able to visualize the several different, somewhat contradictory, effects that TGFb exerts on 4T1 cells.

What I have found most interesting about working in this lab is the ability to actually observe the effects of experiments through a microscope.  Often times, molecular biology requires one to appreciate the science behind the daily pipetting of clear liquids, which can still become tedious.  However, working with actual tissues that can be seen under a microscope allows one to visualize the effects of various perturbations.  For example, after treating the 4T1 cells with TGFb, I was able to notice changes in the cellular morphology.  The cells appeared more stretched and the colonies less compact. Such phenotypic changes were suggestive of TGFb-induced cellular migration, which could lead to metastasis in vivo.  The pictures below illustrate these changes – scroll your mouse over them to view the captions.

With two weeks of experience under my belt, I feel a lot more confident and independent about my work in the lab.  Tomorrow I will begin the actual experiments that will hopefully answer my research question – I’m pretty excited!

This past week has been exciting, intense, and extremely educational.  My mentor worked closely with me the past few days to teach me various protocols that will be useful when I begin conducting independent experiments in the next few weeks.  After discussing some basic questions to be answered during the course of my fellowship, my mentor taught me basic techniques involved in cell culture.  Because the cells grow rapidly, the cultures must be passaged often so that they do not reach complete confluence on the culture dish as this would inhibit further division of the cell line.  It was very exciting to be able to see actual cancer cells under the microscope and subsequently work with them.  I also conducted two brief experiments involving TGFB signaling to better understand the signaling pathway and further practice basic scientific techniques.  I analyzed the results of my experiment by conducting polyacrylomide gel electrophoresis to separate the Smad proteins that had been activated by TGFB and used immunoblotting, or Western blotting, to detect the proteins. 

Hello, my name is Kristin and I am will be conducting research in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke as a part of the Howard Hughes Research Fellows Program.  More specifically, I will be working with a graduate student who is studying transforming growth factor beta (TGFB) and its effect on cancer cells.  In normal cells, the TGFB signaling pathway acts as a tumor suppressor by inducing growth inhibition and/or apoptosis.  Interestingly, TGFB has also been found to act as a tumor promoter in cancer cells by initiating angiogenesis, metastasis, and immunosuppression.  As a part of my fellowship, I will be working with my mentor to study how the various Smad proteins, proteins that are activated by TGFB and exert its effects by acting as transcription factors, encourage cellular migration and metastasis in 4T1 cells, an especially invasive breast cancer cell line derived from mice.  I am very excited about participating in this fellowship, as I am interested in pursuing a career in cancer research.  I see this program as a wonderful opportunity to better understand what such a career would be like as well as to prepare for future research opportunities by gaining significant laboratory experience.