Whispering Sands Beach
Here’s a quick recap from week one. I am Lily Vogel and I am spending four more weeks in San Diego, California at the Scripps Research Institute studying neurobiology.
Last week I was able to get a ton of more hands-on experience! But first on Monday we didn’t have work because it was a holiday: Juneteenth, so my roommates (Natalie, Giada, Melaina, and Aubreille) and I went out to Whispering Sands Beach. None of us swam because we didn’t bring our bathing suits, but we did realize it would be an amazing place to come back to and swim because the water was very clear, there weren’t very many people, and it was a very clean area. We also found a crab in the tidepools.
I think Wednesday was my favorite day in the lab this week because I was able to do multiple ultrasounds on mice.
Ultrasound Setup
A little backstory about me is that I have wanted to be an ultrasound technician for years now, and that was the first ultrasound I have ever done!
Ultrasound. Green: Embryo, Yellow: Bladder
I was worried at first that I wasn’t going to do it right, or it would make me realize ultrasound isn’t the right career path, but it made me love the idea even more. I was so grateful for that experience. I was able to identify the embryos inside the pregnant mice, along with the bladder, and intestines. They were under light anesthesia while we did the ultrasounds so the mice weren’t wiggling around and we were able to see the images clearly. On the ultrasound setup the mouse was placed on the green rectangle which was a heating pad so they could maintain body temperature because while they are under it is very hard for mice to control their temperature.
Simple Sketch of the Surgery
On Thursday, I practiced micro pipetting and I learned about how they work. Most of the day I was doing research on how to properly use the pipettes and then I was able to test my knowledge and pipetted water for about an hour. Afterward I was reading up on staining antibodies and microscopes for Friday when Saba asked me if I wanted to go and watch a surgery Verina was doing. Of course I said yes. The surgery was very noninvasive: only the skin was cut to expose the fat underneath and then a green florescent agent (GFP) was syringed on the surface of the fat. The purpose of this was to see in a few weeks if neurons took that agent to the spine; the way we will be able to see this is by euthanizing the mice and slicing their spine into very small pieces, and then looking at it under a confocal microscope to see if there is any florescence.
Confocal Microscope Images
On Friday, I was with Verina practically the whole day. I was able to look at images from the confocal microscope digitally, and it was nothing like I had ever seen before. Instead of looking through the microscope the images were automatically sent to a computer. Confocal microscopes use lasers to get multiple images of the specimen and then are able to create a 3D image that you can zoom into and pick out whatever section you need. I also saw images from a light sheet imaging device. After that I we took two mice that were already going to be euthanized and dissected them.
Light Sheet Imaging: Mouse
I have never dissected an animal before, but Verina gave amazing instructions and made the experience very fun. And at the end of it was able to take both of the mice brains home in a saline solution!
Mouse Brain
Lastly on Saturday, my roommates and I went back to Whispering Sands Beach. This time we all brought our bathing suits and swam in the ocean; the water was very clear and it wasn’t really that cold. We also made friends with a squirrel family. They kept running down the rocks to see what we were doing and a few of the adults came all the way up to us looking for food! We went back home after a while, made dinner, then when out again to watch the sunset (cover photo) from the cliffs of Black Beach!
There are no comments published yet.