Kauffman Labs
Kauffman Labs is located at the University of California San Diego and they study the impacts of hormones that control reproduction in mammals. Their research in reproduction is working towards improving fertility treatments, contraceptive methods, and helping developmental disorders. In my internship I’m most excited about getting the opportunity to work with the mice brain slices and viewing the impacts of different chemicals in the brain. I hope to learn about laboratory conduct and safety so that if I ever work in a place with a lab I would already carry these skills with me.
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Top 3 Internship Sites
The first site I chose was the UCSD biochemical genetics laboratory because I want to experience working at a lab to see if that’s the kind of environment I would want to work in for a career field. I would like to learn how to conduct formal testing and what kind of projects they work on there. Some skills I can attribute to this site are my knowledge of lab procedures and lab safety because I could be working in the lab and we have to make sure were being safe.
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The second site I choose was Illumina because of the advanced life science research their doing there. I haven’t learned much on genetics and gene sequencing but the topic definitely sounds interesting to learn about. For this internship a skill I can contribute is my understanding of the scientific method because when analyzing different data you need to very organized and detailed to make sure your getting the best results.
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The third site I choose is Human Longevity because of their goal to give everyone access to the power of data-driven health intelligence and their state of the art lab equipment. Internshipping there can give me knowledge on the different equipment used in the analysis of genomic data. Some skills I can attribute to this site are my observation skills because you need to pay close attention when working with large data sets so you don’t miss information.
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Hopes for Internships
For internship I’m most looking forward to getting to experience what having a job is like. I’ve never had one so I want to gain a better understanding of what the working schedule is like. I’m also excited about getting the opportunity to work in the science field and see what that kind of job entails. Some skills I hope to apply to my internship are my observation and perseverance skills. I know I’ll be in a new enviornment so I’ll need to pay close attention to how things work there. Also I know at some point things will get difficult and with the new environment I won’t be as comfortable as I am at school so I’ll have to keep pushing to move forward.
Photo Essay
Laboratory mice that my coworkers breed. After a certain amount of time the mice are "sacked" (i.e. Sacrificed) and their brains are dissected in order to be studied for the effects of missing or added genes. I took this picture shortly after doing pup checks. This is me seeing if any baby mice were born that day and I found 4 new litters!
Currently pipetting a primer into what my coworker Frank likes to call the "master mix" as part of a PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction). To put it simply in a PCR you are making a copy of a DNA sample or gene. You mix your primers, buffers, nucleotide bases, your DNA template and redtaq (a dye). After you place them into a thermal cycling machine that repeatedly heats and cools your mix to cause a reaction. The reaction were trying to induce is DNA replication.
After completing a PCR we have to perform a gel. Here I am trying to visualize the DNA by pipetting them into wells of our solidified gel mixture. We then place a cover over it that sends 90 volts of current into the gel that causes the DNA to travel towards the positively charged side of the lid since DNA is negatively charged. One finished we stain the gel and under ultraviolet light, we can see the DNA as differently sized bands.
Here I'm getting ready to perform a brain dissection. We always have to make sure to wear scrubs so the area is sterile. Protection is also key since the mice we are working with and any of the waste is considered biohazardous.
This is a practice brain, I and Ernesto have been using to practice our brain slicing skills on the cryostat machine (keeps mounted items cold) you see in the background. From this point of view, you can see the bottom of the brain but what we're trying to observe is the hypothalamus (where Kisspeptin is produced which causes the production of LH and FSH) which is located around the center of the opposite side. It's glued on to a disc that mounts onto the cryostat so we can cut with ease.
Take a 1st person view at what I see through the microscope when I practice identifying the right ventricle in the brain! The 3rd ventricle is easily identifiable by the light grey slash or oval that can sometimes be heavily surrounded by cells which can be seen as the bright white clusters. I find it by identifying the Corpus Callosum which looks quite similar to a uni brow and I go down directly in the center of it towards the bottom of the brain where I look for the clusters.
Every morning I wake up at 7:30 a.m. get ready and leave the house around 8:15 a.m. Most days traffic is heavy so it takes me around an hour to get from Chula Vista to UCSD. My brother drives me every morning and during the trip I usually sleep or listen to music. Occasionally I have some deep conversations with my brother regarding life and I feel like the time we spend together brings us closer and strengthens our bond.
Here's a selfie that Ernesto and I took with our mentor Dr. Alexander Sasha Kauffman after completing our mentor interview. We questioned Sasha on his college experience and career path. It was great to get to know more about our mentor for example, how he managed his academics and his workplace aspirations.
On my last day at Kauffman Labs I had to turn in my access badge. I felt kinda bummed out because I remember when I finally got one I felt so excited and a real sense of belonging in the work place. I'll miss working there, but it was a great and unforgettable experience.
This is the assay I worked with for my internship project. It is a collection of a mice's brain slices on a slide that we can put under a microscope to view more in depth. This particular assay is for female mice that have their estrogen receptor alpha knocked out.
This is what my assay brain slices look like once in the microscope and through the program we use to visualize on the computer. We count the cells by comparing the number of red dots that are close together with the background. Once you select all of your cells we click measure and on a spread sheet we get the collective information sorted out.
This is a sheet of all the slide I used for my project. I used a total of eight mice samples with three slides for each mice. They were all female wild type mice with either no estradiol or with estradiol and I analyzed the cell numbers in the ARC (Arcuate Nucleus). The samples I used were all of the highlighted one.