One Week at my Internship

During the second week of spring break, I've decided to meet the people at the lab that I will intern at over the summer. This whole experience has been nerve wreaking, I've been officially rejected by one lab and many people, even after extensive emailing, have not responded, before finally being accepted into Dr. Patel's lab at UCSD. I just wanted to say that my one week experience there has exceeded my expectations. I was afraid that I might be amid really professional, busy people with PhDs standing awkwardly - trying to learn but not actually get in anyone's way. It actually was the total opposite. I've learned so much in one week about a few different basic lab procedure/experiments that I've never even heard about! Also, the people there were just amazing, super friendly and helpful. They also cared about providing my new friend and I with a positive experience. I just cannot imagine just how much fun summer is going to be!

At this lab, there are many people researching Caveolin, a gene that may play an important role in aging and the problems that may arise with it.

Monday:

I met one of the women who worked there, a college intern and another high schooler that was just as lost as me. We counted the number of moving/non moving C. Elegans and the number of dead vs. alive. The experiment was trying to see if there was a correlation between a particular gene the lab researches about and the amount of anesthesia needed to paralyze/kill it. Then I learned about the Western Blot and the Bradford. This served as a base for Tuesday, when I did a Bradford.

What is a Bradford?

In order to make sure that all your results from multiple samples are standardized or have the same concentration ratio of protein to water. This is done by making a plate of known protein to water and then adding a dye. The dye attaches onto the protein and turns a specific color. The wavelength of the color the solution turn is linearly related to the percent of protein present. After making and analyzing the standard, the amount of protein in the real sample can be determined by the color it turns. Then using the most dilated sample, the rest of the other samples are also dilated to match it. Then, when comparing sampals, you know that you've started out with the same amount.

Western Blot:

This is the second part, and the most important part of your experiment. The Western Blot is a technique used to see if there is a certain protein produced. In short, an antibody (a marker that your immune system produces against a foreign substance) is then placed on the gel with a the proteins. Since, the gel is eighter covered by proteins or a space filler, the antibody is forced to attach onto its protein. Afterwords, a secondary marker ( a dye that attaches on to the antibody) is released. This marker is the one thing that you can visibly see.

I spend the other day hanging out at the VA. They were conducting mitochondria experiments. They were testing which mice mitochondria were the most efficiant, the ones that were from a wild type mouse, one without any of the Cavolin gene expressed and the other one was agianst different stratins of the Cavolin gene. I'm running out of time, so I'll have to call good for now.