Student Research at Duke

I hope some people like my previous post, because you have no idea what kind of hell I had to go through to get it to work.  Thanks for reading!

        So, last night I sat down to make a post, and before I was done writing I had to get up to get my laundry.  Instinctively, I hit the “save” key to safeguard my work from deletion.  Apparently, I did not hit “save” in the correct way, because my computer interpreted the command as “delete.”  Clearly frustrated, I quit for the night.  So, about one hour ago I sat down and attempted to post again.  After completing a thoughtful and insightful post (in my opinion), I pressed the “publish” key, which the computer again interpreted as “delete.”  Anyway, I cannot say that I am particularly pleased.  So I will try one more time, although it will be touch to reproduce the gold that was my second attempt!  

  I began this week in the lab by splitting the line of cells that I have been taking care of, and followed that up by finishing the western blot I started last week.  One annoying aspect of the western blot (and many lab procedures) is that it takes a very long time.  For example, yesterday I first had to incubate my protein membrane with a primary antibody for one hour, change solutions three times and incubate for three ten minute intervals, then incubate with a secondary antibody for another hour followed by three ten-minute incubations with solution changes.  During those steps, there is not much that you can do other than sit and wait.  I almost wish that there was more work to do!  Anyway, after that was done I began to image the protein membranes.  If the previous steps had been done correctly, the antibodies of the previous steps should have bound to the protein of interest (Rac1) such that bands representing the protein would show up on the images.  I imaged the protein membranes using two different techniques: a specialized scanner and film.  Using the scanner was not particularly interesting, but imaging using the film was an experience.  I first had to go into a dark room.  The entrance to this little room was not like the usual door, but instead like a revolving door that was a small capsule that let in absolutely no light.  Most of the time we had to work in almost complete darkness in order to not destroy the films.  Anyway, the end result of all of this imaging showed that I had indeed isolated and marked Rac1, which was the main goal of this experiment.  Other aspects of the experiment could have been performed more efficiently/better, but it was for practice and I am sure that I will become completely proficient in the necessary lab procedures over the course of this program.  At this point in the program I feel pretty well adjusted to working in a lab.  Every day I am becoming more familiar with lab protocol and simply where everything is.  I am also used to walking to the lab every day and the hot and very, very humid conditions that make up the North Carolina climate. 

I realize that the purpose of this blog is to share my experiences in the Howard Hughes program, but there are some unrelated subjects that I feel I must discuss.  I believe that these outside topics will both make my blog more interesting and increase the readership, which we all know is key.   

1.) I am very dissapointed that Roger Federer once again failed in his bid to win the French Open and the career Grand Slam.  He was thwarted by none other than the clay-court king Rafael Nadal for the third time in a row.  I have nothing against Nadal, but for the time being he is nothing but a clay-court specialist (perhaps the best ever) whereas Federer is likely the best around player in the history of the game and deserves to have the career Grand Slam.  Barring injuries, Roger Federer will most likely shatter Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam titles.     

2.) The San Antonio Spurs will crush the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Lebron is very good, but Tim Duncan and Tony Parker are too much and I predict the Cavs will lose at home tonight.    

3.) I am so sick and tired of hearing people say how good the New England Patriots are.  They haven’t even gone to training camp yet, much less played a game and so many people are ready to hand them the Super Bowl.  People, if you must crown them so prematurely, at least watch a regular season game or two.     Thanks for reading my blog.  Pictures will be coming soon, assuming the upload glitch was  fixed.

Well, this is my first post.  I never imagined that I would ever write a blog, but this was inevitable (The program told us we would all be writing blogs, and here I am), so I will try to do a good job.  All this week I have been working in Dr. Ryohei Yasuda’s lab in the neurobiology department, working under a post-doc named Hideji.  My research this summer will involve imaging two proteins called Rac1 and RhoA in living cells.  Doing this requires one to be able to exploit and understand a phenomenon called fluorescence resonance energy transfer, or FRET.  When I was first told this is what I would be doing, I was completely shocked as I had never even heard of this “FRET”, and it was supposed to be one of the principle concepts behind my project.  As I read more about the topic, I became very interested and I am glad that this is what I will be doing.

Unfortunately, there was no FRET this week.  Most of my time thus far has been spent becoming proficient in elementary lab techniques.  so far, the things I have learned are how to split cell cultures, make electrophoresis gel by hand, run an electrophoresis machine, and carry out western blotting, to name a few.  Hideji has been great showing me how to do all of these things, and I’m sure he’s had to take a good amount of time away from his own research to help me.  Anyway, its been a pretty good first week and I look forward to learning more and getting involved in the actual project.