Just keep swimming...
Hey all! I’m Violette. I’m a graduating sophomore from Chapel Hill High (go Tigers!), and a rising junior at NCSSM (go Unicorns!). Two of my main passions are biology and visual art, and I've participated in extracurriculars that correspond- I LOVE my CHHS Science Olympiad team (YOU GUYS ROCK!) and my wonderful Art Club. I also enjoy playing lacrosse and swimming, as well as reading, sleeping, and eating. This is my fourth day working at the Di Giulio Lab, an environmental toxicology lab that, put [too] simply, studies the effects of pollutants on certain species of fish- namely, killifish and zebrafish. It’s a pretty chill, t-shirt and jeans kind of lab (as I’ve proven by wearing t-shirts and jeans every day). It’s been shrinking lately, with students graduating and whatnot, so at the moment it’s a pretty small lab. The PI is, of course, Dr. Richard Di Giulio. I’ve also met Cole, Lindsey, Daewoon, Bryan, and Max so far. Everyone’s been really friendly and charismatic, so I’m really excited to get to know them better over the next 6 weeks.
The Wonder-wall. Zebrafish!
Unlike most of my fellow bloggers, I don’t have a set project or mentor yet. This week I’ve been tagging along and shadowing anyone who’s doing something interesting, be that RNA isolation, RtPCR, or scoring deformities. Through this, I have learned some basic lab protocols, gotten some practical tips, and gotten a better sense of what lab life is all about. Of course, I’ve also spent a fair amount of time just reading articles pertaining to the lab’s work so that I’ll be able to understand why I’m doing what I’m doing.
Dosing the killifish larvae with silver nitrates and silver PVP.
I’ve especially enjoyed actually working with the fish. While it sounds horribly morbid, I found the process of scoring killifish embryo deformities fascinating. Under the naked eye, all the fish eggs look like, well, caviar, but using a fancy microscope we were able to look at them up close on the computer screen. Then we would rate them based on how healthy their hearts were and how well their pigment cells were developing (poorly developed pigment cells indicate that the embryo has edema, another side effect of environmental contamination). Healthy hearts consisted of two well-aligned and well-defined chambers and got a 0 rating. Bad hearts were long and stringy, lopsided, and/or very weak, and warranted either a 1 or 2, depending on the severity of the deformity. Some of the fish that were unlucky enough to be dosed with the nastier chemicals developed some ridiculously screwed up hearts. Is it wrong for me to wish awful things on those poor fish?
Killifish Larvae; so innocent and naive...
All in all, it’s been a great first week. All of the other Howard Hugh-ers are amazingly talented, intelligent, wonderful people, and I feel super lucky to have been granted the opportunity to meet all of them. Peace out!
