Stephanie Wu | Week 2 | Getting Situated
06.12.17 - 06.18.17
This week consisted of a lot of getting used to the lab and the machinery. Throughout the week I spent a lot of time helping Felicia with the mouse brains she had previously removed by slicing and mounting them. I was also introduced to the imaging microscope used to view and capture pictures of the brain slices.
To prepare for slicing I had to cut the cerebellum of the brain off with a blade, then glue it to the dish that would be inserted into the vibratome. The vibratome would then vibrate the blade and it would slowly slice through the brain. I would then have to manually adjust the height of the blade by turning it to make the slices 50 micrometers or 100 micrometers. I would slice the brains by aiming for the area where Felicia injected the virus, which usually consisted of the nucleus accumbens or dorsal striatum. After placing the slices into the wells with the PBS (a type of saline solution), I would keep it in the fridge. Later on I would take out the slices and start mounting them onto microscope slides. Mounting is difficult however as it takes a lot of patience to get the brains situated correctly on the slides without having any folds, ripping it, or having air bubbles. After placing the slices on the slide, I would wait for it to dry then either coat them in fluoromount (which is an aqueous mounting medium) or vectashield (another mounting medium that has DAPI which stains the nucleus). After this I put on the glass cover and wait for the slide to dry before placing it in the fridge for later imaging.
Imaging we use the Olympus microscope. Due to the fact that the brains I'm currently working with use GFP (green fluorescent protein), we use the setting that allows us to see the injections in a green light. I spent much of my time imaging the slides I had made.
On Wednesday Felicia also brought me to listen to a seminar during lunch. The seminar was about the effects of social standards and how different groups of people are represented in the work force. I really enjoyed it because it involved some psychological aspects and the statistics and information presented I felt were relevant to today. The questions that were asked by the students there were also really interesting and eye opening. I was also able to watch Felicia record from a synapse of a cell on her rig and computer.
On Thursday I got my black key and my Penn Card for accessing the lab and also went to the field day Kyra planned for all of Penn's neuroscience graduate students. It was fun because of all the games there were, and I had fun with my lab mates who went and with the people Felicia introduced me to. Everyone was really nice and I had a great time.
I ended the week imaging some more of my slides, and spent the weekend at home visiting some friends.
This week consisted of a lot of getting used to the lab and the machinery. Throughout the week I spent a lot of time helping Felicia with the mouse brains she had previously removed by slicing and mounting them. I was also introduced to the imaging microscope used to view and capture pictures of the brain slices.
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| (vibratome which slices the brain) |
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| (wells with the brain slices) |
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| (the mounting process) |
To prepare for slicing I had to cut the cerebellum of the brain off with a blade, then glue it to the dish that would be inserted into the vibratome. The vibratome would then vibrate the blade and it would slowly slice through the brain. I would then have to manually adjust the height of the blade by turning it to make the slices 50 micrometers or 100 micrometers. I would slice the brains by aiming for the area where Felicia injected the virus, which usually consisted of the nucleus accumbens or dorsal striatum. After placing the slices into the wells with the PBS (a type of saline solution), I would keep it in the fridge. Later on I would take out the slices and start mounting them onto microscope slides. Mounting is difficult however as it takes a lot of patience to get the brains situated correctly on the slides without having any folds, ripping it, or having air bubbles. After placing the slices on the slide, I would wait for it to dry then either coat them in fluoromount (which is an aqueous mounting medium) or vectashield (another mounting medium that has DAPI which stains the nucleus). After this I put on the glass cover and wait for the slide to dry before placing it in the fridge for later imaging.
Imaging we use the Olympus microscope. Due to the fact that the brains I'm currently working with use GFP (green fluorescent protein), we use the setting that allows us to see the injections in a green light. I spent much of my time imaging the slides I had made.
On Wednesday Felicia also brought me to listen to a seminar during lunch. The seminar was about the effects of social standards and how different groups of people are represented in the work force. I really enjoyed it because it involved some psychological aspects and the statistics and information presented I felt were relevant to today. The questions that were asked by the students there were also really interesting and eye opening. I was also able to watch Felicia record from a synapse of a cell on her rig and computer.
On Thursday I got my black key and my Penn Card for accessing the lab and also went to the field day Kyra planned for all of Penn's neuroscience graduate students. It was fun because of all the games there were, and I had fun with my lab mates who went and with the people Felicia introduced me to. Everyone was really nice and I had a great time.
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| (Felicia (right) and her roommate (left) racing in the blow-up obstacle course) |
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| (Kyuhyun (post doc), Felicia (grad student), me, and Kyra (grad student)) |
I ended the week imaging some more of my slides, and spent the weekend at home visiting some friends.
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