A Long TRIP Ahead! by Samarth Mannikeri

Hello, again, readers! I hope you are having a wonderful day!

I, on the other hand, have been loving TRIP thus far, and I can’t wait for my Tuesdays and Thursdays to come and meet with my TRIP family! TRIP has been very, very exciting, and I truly enjoy working with Dr. Leystra, the TAs, and my fellow TRIP-mates! From micropipetting liquids to sorting fruit flies, I have been able to learn several things in the past 3 weeks. In fact, I have been able to reduce my fruit fly sorting time from nearly 16 minutes to almost 5-7 minutes, which is quite an accomplishment, especially for a person like me, who is quite messy!

Currently, we are halfway through our TRIP program (reaching the end of our 3rd week), and it has been quite a rollercoaster, phew! Specifically, I have been working on my introductory project, as I am determining how red clover and sugar affect fertility. In this scenario, my drug was the red clover (which was known to boost fertility), and my stressor was a high sugar diet (which was known to reduce fertility).

To begin, I needed to set up my fertility assay. First, I needed to change the fly vials. This is necessary, as I would only have adult flies in a new vial, and they would not have access to food and would leave all other larvae/pupae in the previous vial. Next, I needed to entice the adult flies to lay embryos by using the flies’ favorite soup– yeast and sour grape plates! After nearly 2 hours of incubation in a dark room with warmer conditions (perfect for mating and laying embryos), we then used a microscope to count the number of embryos that were laid and eventually hatched. This assay was quite fun and interesting; but, although I must admit, it was quite hard and tedious, especially considering the process required to make the sour grape plates.

Apart from my introductory project, I set out to discover my independent project– something that had been known to affect my life. My family in India despises modern medicine, despite how fast the remedy may be, and they rather depend on naturopathy/allopathy, specifically in terms of ayurvedic medicine. Therefore, I came upon this project to truly see which type of medicine is the most effective and beneficial to humans without many of the widespread side effects. The benefits of homeopathy are quite prevalent and contain much fewer detriments, contrary to allopathy. Additionally, the rise of “Big Pharma”, the large amount of stress and breaks in the US healthcare system, and the rising corruption in the pharmaceutical industry led me to my question:How do Penicillin & Streptomycin (mixture) and Asparagus racemosus (Shatavari) affect fertility and rate of growth, and what does it illustrate in terms of allopathy and homeopathy in its effectiveness as antibiotics?

How does Penicillin & Streptomycin (mixture) and Asparagus racemosus (Shatavari) affect fertility and rate of growth, and what does it illustrate in terms of allopathy and homeopathy in its effectiveness as antibiotics?

This question, as I knew it from the start, was not going to be easy to prove. Additionally, there has not been any forms of research comparing the differences and similarities of a mixture of Penicillin & Streptomycin and Shatavari, as it is quite uncommon. In order to start this project, I needed to establish my main assays, and they include a microbiome assay (quantifying the gut bacteria of flies through the various amounts of antibacterial drugs), a male & female fertility assay (determining the quantity of successful offspring), and an overall growth assay (through an image analysis of the Fiji ImageJ software). With a large number of assays to test and prove my question, I am now ready to start this project in all its entirety!

Additionally, in conjunction with the TRIP initiative program, I have been able to further become an independent person. From taking the train to walking around the city, I find myself in awe of how wonderful urban life is and how discrete it is to the little suburbia I live in. In the end, I can’t wait to see how well my project goes, and I also can’t wait to update you all on how the project goes! Until next time! ​

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