Stephanie Wu | Week 1 | Demonstrations, Training, and Preparations
06.05.17 - 06.11.17
My first week at UPenn has been both really memorable and busy. I arrived at UPenn on June 5th, and started my lab work the next morning. I showed up to the lab at 9am and there met my graduate student, Felicia, and was introduced to the rest of the lab members. My lab consists of 12 people, including me. There's my PI, two post docs, three graduate students, a rotation student, a lab technician, and three undergraduate students. I was definitely nervous meeting everyone for the first time, but they were all welcoming and made my transition much more easier!
After introductions, I got to watch Felicia and another graduate student, Kyra, perform surguries on mice. Felicia did viral injections into the brain, specifically using an AAV virus that was RFP-turbo (RFP = red fluorescent protein). She injected it into the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to check her coordinates for future surgeries. She is considering targeting the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) later on. Krya was working on fiber implantations, and injected GCamp6 in order to do fiber photometry to measure calcium transients during behavior. Calcium transients in this situation would be used as a substitute for neural activity. The surgeries were performed in the basement of the Clinical Research Building (where my lab is located), and there I was also introduced to all the mice they kept.
The following days consisted of reading papers to gain a better understanding of the research my lab was conducting, attending the lab meeting on Wednesday (where we listened to one of the post docs, Elizabeth, give a presentation on her work with interneurons and the possible roles they may play), as well as watching other demos. The demos included watching Felicia perform transcardial perfusion, which is the process of cutting open a mouse and pushing all the blood out from the heart so that it leaves the brain clear of blood for slicing. She would then use a vibratome to slice the brains into thin pieces for imaging the effects of the injections. I also went with Felicia and Kyra to look at the effects of the injection and surgery Kyra performed on the confocal to see the synapses of the cells and their dendrites:
Later on in the week, I myself was trained to be able to slice brains, mount the slices, and image them on the imaging microscope.
At the end of the week, I toured UPenn and walked around University City with Pang.
Overall my first week was great and I'm excited for the upcoming weeks at my lab and in Philadelphia!
My first week at UPenn has been both really memorable and busy. I arrived at UPenn on June 5th, and started my lab work the next morning. I showed up to the lab at 9am and there met my graduate student, Felicia, and was introduced to the rest of the lab members. My lab consists of 12 people, including me. There's my PI, two post docs, three graduate students, a rotation student, a lab technician, and three undergraduate students. I was definitely nervous meeting everyone for the first time, but they were all welcoming and made my transition much more easier!
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(part of my lab, featuring my grad student at her desk/rig)
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After introductions, I got to watch Felicia and another graduate student, Kyra, perform surguries on mice. Felicia did viral injections into the brain, specifically using an AAV virus that was RFP-turbo (RFP = red fluorescent protein). She injected it into the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to check her coordinates for future surgeries. She is considering targeting the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) later on. Krya was working on fiber implantations, and injected GCamp6 in order to do fiber photometry to measure calcium transients during behavior. Calcium transients in this situation would be used as a substitute for neural activity. The surgeries were performed in the basement of the Clinical Research Building (where my lab is located), and there I was also introduced to all the mice they kept.
The following days consisted of reading papers to gain a better understanding of the research my lab was conducting, attending the lab meeting on Wednesday (where we listened to one of the post docs, Elizabeth, give a presentation on her work with interneurons and the possible roles they may play), as well as watching other demos. The demos included watching Felicia perform transcardial perfusion, which is the process of cutting open a mouse and pushing all the blood out from the heart so that it leaves the brain clear of blood for slicing. She would then use a vibratome to slice the brains into thin pieces for imaging the effects of the injections. I also went with Felicia and Kyra to look at the effects of the injection and surgery Kyra performed on the confocal to see the synapses of the cells and their dendrites:
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| (image at 40x) |
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| (image at 60x) |
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| (A scholl analysis of the dendrites to see their complexity) |
Later on in the week, I myself was trained to be able to slice brains, mount the slices, and image them on the imaging microscope.
At the end of the week, I toured UPenn and walked around University City with Pang.
 |
| (part of UPenn) |
Overall my first week was great and I'm excited for the upcoming weeks at my lab and in Philadelphia!
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