Week 1 of the first NSF REU Program at CSUSM was such a success and so far, has been a wonderful experience! The week began on Sunday for move in day, giving us the first chance to meet all the people we were going to be interacting with for the next ten weeks in the cohort. After moving in, all members of the cohort and the PI’s of the program got together for a dinner in order to be able to further get to know each other and be able to ask questions about the ten weeks of research ahead of us. On Monday the REU cohort, as well as other summer scholars, were lucky enough to get invited to ViaSat for a kickoff event hosted by them. This gave us a great opportunity to be able to network with more of the cohort and a few of their employees who regularly hire recent graduates. ViaSat even brought along a few employees of theirs who were CSUSM Alumni so they could tell us their journey to the company after graduation. After the event ended, we all headed back to our campus to be able to meet with our PI’s and talk about what research plan we had for the summer as well as do a few safety trainings.
On Wednesday the cohort attended a seminar on campus entitled Introduction to Next Generation Sequencing which gave us a very informative introduction into all the basics of next generation sequencing as well as the leading companies and what sequencers they produce. Throughout the week all REU students have also been working on their projects in lab. Each member of the cohort is doing some very interesting research! For example, in my lab we are focused on being able to sequence bacteria within the costal microbiome and classify any mobile elements they have within them. For this week we have started with lots of research into primer designs, the right enzymes for enzymatic lysis and we have begun making media for bacterial colonies from the ocean to grow on. My lab group was also able to take ocean samples this week so we will hopefully be able to isolate and grow the bacteria. For many others in the program they too are starting off with some basics because it is our first week of research. Some students have been shadowing grad students in their lab while they look at the influence of delta t cells on immunity in mice and others have been learning how to make filtered seawater media, inoculate cells, perform flow cytometer counts and how to prep cultures for lipid extraction in order to lead up to their project of working with a micro algae. Another is working on working on what it takes to raise different lady beetles outside of their region in order to collect an RNA sample using the Zymo Direct-zol MiniPrep Kit. So far, the first week has been filled with great networking opportunities as well as great first beginnings in our research. I can’t wait for what lies ahead for all of us!
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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
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