Mis expectaciones
So, I'm on Week 2 (Day 9) of the Howard Hughes program, and already I've learned so so so much. On day 1, I didn't learn much of anything - I just feverishly copied down everything Cathy (post-doc mentor) said (this still happens on occasion, but not too often). Now, I'm starting to get the hang of things, and I'm also doing more things on my own.
This summer, I want to grow more confident in my knowledge of molecular biology and cancer. I hope to be able to come into the lab in the morning and know exactly how I'm going to spend my time that day. I want to lose the feeling of constantly being scared that I'm about to mess up something.
Though I've been reading a lot of papers, it's been very hard for the information within to really "sink in"; as a result, it's hard for me to keep the big picture in mind. Whether this requires more studying on my part or just continued immersion in the lab atmosphere, I don't know - but by the end of the summer, I want to be able to talk about my research and the surrounding scientific principles (the TGF-beta signalling pathway and how it relates to colon cancer, the various parts of the TGF-beta family, etc) with confidence and ease, as well as be able to explain WHY I'm doing all the things I'm doing, instead of just doing them because I know they have to be done.
I hope I come out of this program with a plan. Throughout freshman year, I kind of went through the motions without having a goal or a plan - I just knew I wasn't pre-med (this undoubtedly helped my stress level). However, it isn't good not to have a goal, because without a goal, there is little motivation to do anything! So, whether I plan on working with TGF-beta in the future or if the work I'm doing now leads me somewhere else, either way I want to know something by the end of these eight weeks.
Welcome to the Blobe Lab! This is in the LSRC on the 3rd level. It's kind of randomly situated with some IGSP labs and pediatric cancer labs. We have a fridge and a microwave for food!!!
This is a picture of me working at one of the microscopes. We made a scratch wound (basically taking a very thin pipette tip and scraping the bottom of a small well - the cells are stuck to the bottom) and are looking at the progress the cells make in "closing" the "wound." This is analagous to studying cell migration which is analagous to studying the ability of cells to metastasize in cancer.
This is me doing stuff in the lab at our bench. I can't remember exactly what I was doing..
This is our bench, where Cathy (post-doc I'm working under) and I do a lot of our stuff! A lot of the equipment we use most often is there too, such as the stopwatch, the pipetmen, the electrophoresis tray, and the PBS wash.
This is my very modest work space. Since it's so freezing right there, and since one of the lab technicians was gone this week, I've been using her desk... but on Monday I will have to go back here!