Peddie EXP 2017

When I was in 7th grade my dad told me that he wouldn't let me go to the mall alone with a friend because I was "directionally challenged".  Which was very true. So you could imagine the surprise when I completed my first day in Philly without getting lost once and successfully getting on the train there and back (thank god for Google Maps). Too be fair though, the week before I started EXP, I went to Philly with my brother, Jake, and we practiced walking to my lab and then spent the day finding cool places in the city. The train is actually really easy (shout out to Bridgid Greed for telling me about University City Station and the West Trenton Line). I get on the train at 7:06am and I get off at 8:35am at University City. From there, I just walk about 10ish minutes to my lab.   On the way back, sometimes I do the same thing and go back to University City station, but other times I take the 20ish minute walk to 30th St. Station when there aren't many trains at U...

06.19.17 - 06.25.17 For the majority of this week I spent my time slicing and mounting the brains Felicia had previously removed from some mice via perfusion after inserting the injections she was working with. The main type of mouse I have worked with are the rAAV2 Delta-Cre mice (which are the controls) and the rAAV2 GFP-Cre mice (which are the experimentals), which are then divided into hetero and homo. From there, Felicia targeted specific regions of the brain, mostly injecting into areas such as the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the dorsal striatum (DS). She injected both a control virus as well as multiple experimental viruses. By slicing the brains we would eventually be able to image them on the microscope and see the effects of the injection on the synapses of the brains and the different afferent sites as well. (some brain slices (N1C. 87)) (more slices) (some mounted slides of N1C. 125 & 126 brain slices) (what my slide box currently looks like) Bes...

My first week at Drexel was both challenging and relaxing at different points.  Travelling to an unfamiliar part in Philadelphia, one of the biggest cities in America is not an easy feat.  It took me a couple of rides on the PATCO and wandering around 15th street to finally figure out how to have a smooth commute. My first day, Monday June 19, was my longest and most tedious, being jet-lagged and recovering from a slight caffeine addiction thanks to the China trip didn’t help either.  Within ten minutes of my being in the lab, I was already watching my first rat surgery which was conducted by a graduate student (Nick).  The goal of the surgery was to isolate the hepatocyte cells from the rest of the liver.  Afterwards I began a series of introductions to different laboratory members and filled out a series of paperwork.  My PI, Dr. Bouchard then gave me and another high school student Kennadi, who started work on the same day, a personal tour of his lab ...

My first two weeks at the Rutgers Cognitive Computational Lab has been an intriguingly special and fun experience.   Throughout this short piece of time, not only did I get hands on experience of what it’s like to be a researcher, but I’ve also gotten time to learn a little bit more about the location of the lab.     Firstly, I would like to take the time to mention that in the beginning of these two weeks, the thought of going to a city like Newark on my own made me want to cringe and cry at the same time. On my first day, my dad decided to come with me because he wanted to make sure I was ok. He dropped me off in front of Smith Hall (the location of the lab) and I still remember the last thing he told me. With a smile on his face, he told me never to keep my phone in my back pocket because if I did, the next time I would reach for it, it would already be gone. So, that was my first impression of Newark. As I said bye to my dad and walked into the buildi...