We are fast approaching the end of our research program, so sad! Hello, my name is Amanda Nweke and I currently work in Dr. Mothe's lab. My project is to formulate a construct to make a hypoimmunogenic stem cell using CRISPR. My research came as a result of two papers published by Harvard University and University of California San Francisco (UCSF). In both papers, hypoimmunogenic stem cells were made by knocking out HLA-A/B/C and CIITA and knocking in B2M (USCF) or PDL1, HLA-G, and CD47(Harvard). What I am currently doing now is finding if there is any MHC expression in our Gibco human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) using both PCR and a flow cytometry. Aside from being in the lab this week, we all had the opportunity to go to various networking events and seminars. Tuesday, we visited the University of California Riverside (UCR) where Dr. Glenn Hicks gave us a tour of some the research that goes on at UCR. In the first lab we visited, the PhD students spoke on their research with bumble bees and how bacteria affects the bee population. We concluded our tour with the graduate students discussing their experience as PhD candidates at UCR. I found this discussion very useful, because a lot of times some of the graduate students “don’t keep it real” to some of the undergraduate students about some of the challenges they face in graduate school. I also found the advice they gave to us useful as well. On Wednesday, we had a poster presentation seminar hosted by both Dr. Julie Jameson and Dr. Besty Read. They gave beneficial information on how to make a scientific poster and how to effectively deliver your research to an audience. They also proposed a new way of creating a poster that pinpoints the main conclusion on the poster as the forefront of the poster. On Thursday, we went to a *NSPIRE symposium poster presentation event hosted by Dr. Robert G. Iafe. In which three guest speakers who were PhD candidates at Scripps Research Institute gave a talk about their journey to a PhD as well as the research they are currently working on at Scripps. After that, there was a poster presentation given by students from California State University San Marcos.
0 Comments
Almost reaching the finish line of this program and I'm truly enjoying every minute of it!
My name is Matilde Macedo and I am working in Dr. Jameson's lab which focuses on studying T cells that are involved immune diseases such as alopecia areata, and type 2 diabetes. In this lab I learn a lot of laboratory techniques such as sterilizing tools with the autoclave, working in the TC hood, and maintain cell lines. Additionally, I learn how to do epithelium preparation which consist of extracting dendric epidermal T cells (DETCs) from mice and plate them into a 96 well plate to prepare them for RNA extractions. I also learned how to do immunofluorescent staining on wounded tissues so we can visualize the t cells that are involved in wound healing. In this program I've been working on public data analyzing the RNA of people with alopecia areata using Galaxy. In this computer program I learn how to use different tools to analyze the transcriptome which includes FASTQ, Tophat, cufflinks, and cuffdiffs. My research involves in investigating if genes signatures of DETCs in patients with alopecia areata are upregulated or downregulated. This will help us picture the influence of DETCs in this disease. Overall my experience in this program had been amazing. In this week we attended the NSF GRFP webinar where we learned more about the program's application which can help recognize and financially support MS and PhD level research. To destress from our projects, we hiked the Iron Mountain to observe the beautiful new moon from up there. I am thankful that I get to have this experience which in turn will help me get a step further in reaching my career goals. It’s already week 6 but it dosen’t feel like it, the time has gone by in a flash. Tuesday we had the opportunity to attend a presentation given by Dr. Harish Nagaranja, who is a senior scientist at Genomatica. Genomatica is a Bioengineering company that has explored in finding renewable ways to produce chemicals for products like plastics, cosmetics, and nylon. It was cool to hear that they have found natural alternatives to nonrenewable resources. He also told us his path of becoming a research scientist. Starting out in India and moving to San Diego to do his doctorates. Then going into Genomatica as an intro research scientist and working up to senior scientist. It was interesting to hear how he got to where he is now. After the presentation were tasked to come up without poster titles. This kind of came as a shock to some of us because we thought there was a lot more time. But with only 4 weeks left its best to get started on our posters and paper now, rather than later. On Wednesday the REU cohort and Summer Scholars were invited to participate in a mentorfest. It allowed us to talk to representatives of big companies like Thermo Fisher, Illumina, Viasat, Intuit and Hunter Industries. There with our peers we networked and ask questions to mentors of the companies. On Thursday a couple of us were craving some wings so we went over to Buffalo Wild Wings and got their 75¢ wings deal. We hung out and even received an order of cheese curds by mistake. Now reaching the end of the week we are all in lab working hard to continue our research projects.
For my research we are looking into how landscape practices effect the decomposition of litter from evergreen and deciduous leaves. This week i was able to weight out super tiny sample around 10 mg int tin cups. These were then put through into a Costech CHN elemental combustion system to see how much carbon and nitrogen are in our samples. With that data we can analyze it next week to see how the 5 different sites differ in decomposition. WELL, WE ARE HALFWAY THERE!
Hello everyone, my name is Frank Gonzalez and I am working in Dr. Betsy Read’s lab. I can’t believe we have already been here for five weeks. They are just flying by and we are all well into our projects and looking towards our poster presentation. For these first five weeks I have been looking at three different microalgae mutants along with the wild type. I have been spending a lot of time performing lipid extractions, running it through the GC/MS, and analyzing my data to characterize the mutants based off the lipid profiles, below I included a relative percentage chart of my samples. I have also learned how to inoculate cells, perform flow cytometry to count my cells and track the amount of neutral lipids, and this week I learned how to perform a DNA extract and run my first ever gel. I did have some RNA contamination and a little shearing but that is to be expected. Besides spending our time in lab this week, we got to hear a very interesting and informative seminar about epigenetics given by Dr. Elinne Becket, participate in the annual grunion run, go on my first Californian hike, and grill out for the 4th of July. Overall my time so far here has been great and I am sure will continue to be great but over my time of being here and talking with my fellow peers I have learned that working in a lab can be hard and at times frustrating but at the same time it is so rewarding when you see the bands light up on your first gel or a unique lipid profile on one of your mutants. It makes the frustrating moments worth it. I can’t wait to see what these next five weeks have in store. So long yall! PS- peep the lab coat. |
Watch this space for weekly updates!Every week, one of our CSUSM NSF REU students will post their blurb, summarizing their week, and chronicling our program. AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2023
Categories |