Ricardo Romo
During the summer I had the privilege to participate
on a research project with Dr. Abdel Bachri with the partnership of Dr. Rupak
Puthak and Dr. Martin Hauer Jensen. In our research we desired to understand how
Gamma tocotrinol, a drug, mitigates the stresses of microgravity and gamma
radiation on chromosomes. Chromosomal aberrations are serious abnormalities
that arise from stresses of radiation and can cause circulatory system
diseases. Astronauts and cancer patients
that were exposed to radiation contribute a good portion of our population with
these dilemmas. With my undergraduate partners Daryll Webb and Cullen Shaffer,
we spent a good amount of time with familiarizing ourselves with similar
published articles. We experimented with human umbilical vein endothelial cells
(huvec) for they are an intermediate resistant cell line against
radiation. Dr. Bachri had us practice
all the basic protocols, and stressed how fundamental it was to achieve maximum
proliferation, and to prevent contamination in the lab. Basic procedures like
Giemsa staining, trypsinizing cells, and cell counting were essentially the
methods that we performed during the whole summer. As an honors student it was
an amazing experience finding out the different insights into how research is
integrated and directed. I find it to be very beneficial to learn and work
somewhere different. It brings out a self-rewarding feeling to use this experience
as a resume builder for grad school where I hopefully could begin next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment