My second week working for North Shore really showed me how much I have changed and learned in just two weeks. For starters, at the beginning of week one, I was super confused whenever people were teaching me about what I will be doing and I didn’t know anyone, but now I feel like I am apart of the North Shore family and already I am surprising my parents with how much I know.
I started this week trying to figure out a good project that I could complete in the next five weeks, with my mentor. My mentor and another scientist I often work with, put together a project that is simple enough for me to understand and complete in 5 weeks. This project is a project for us to see how African American epithelial cancer cells are affected differently than Caucasian cells when exposed to the used medium (food) from cancerous stromal cells, because the stromal cells talk to the epithelial cells constantly, so we are seeing how the chemicals, that are in the medium, from the stromal cells, affect the epithelial cells.
Test tube spinner (left) and water bath (right)
Hood I use to complete all my procedures.
Inverse microscope I use to check the cells confluency. Inverse means the magnification piece of the microscope comes from the bottom rather than the tradition top.
Cells, under microscope, at almost 100% confluency, but not quite.
This week I learned many new things and I am feeling much more comfortable with the new things I learned last week. I learned what confluency is in cells, which is how much space they take up in their flask, so when they are 100% confluent, then they have no room to grow so they need to be split into separate flasks which I also learned how to do. To make sure my cells aren’t over crowded I have to
check them every day using an inverse microscope, and I also have to check their medium (food) in case they need more. I learned how to split the cells into separate flasks, which is a long process but they say I am good at it so I am not worried about it. To complete this process I have the privilege of using a water bath, a test tube spinner and inverse microscope. I also have to use a hood and practice being in a clean environment so that no bacteria or anything gets into the cells.
It has been a full week of learning and practicing but it has gone by really fast and I think it has already been the best experience of my life, even two weeks into it.
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