A TRIP of a Lifetime by Amritha Sakamuri

Time has flown by so quickly! It feels like just yesterday I stepped into the lab, brimming with excitement, and now here I am, writing my final blog. These past three months have been an incredibly surreal experience during which I’ve gained invaluable knowledge, which will undoubtedly benefit me in my future career.

For my independent project, I investigated the impact of high doses of melatonin and sleep deprivation on female fertility, embryo health, and anxiety. My interest in melatonin stemmed from its increasing usage among adolescents. I conducted this experiment using 4 vials of flies: one control, one with a high dose of melatonin, one subjected to disrupted sleep, and one with both high melatonin and disrupted sleep. To assess fertility I used the female fertility assay, measuring the number of progeny formed during a 2 hour incubation window. After the embryos spent 48 hours in a humidity chamber I measured how many of those embryos hatched. The higher the number of embryos per female fly the higher the levels of fertility and, the higher the percent of hatched embryos the higher the embryo health. For anxiety levels, I employed the open-field assay. To determine anxiety levels I placed flies in the center of a petri dish and observed the time spent in the center versus the edge. Model organisms like fruit flies and humans when we are anxious we tend to stay towards the edge of a space, so the less time spent in the center the more anxious they are.

both melatonin and a disrupted sleep schedule would increase anxiety levels when utilized individually and together

Through my 5 trials, a consistent trend emerged in the data: both melatonin and a disrupted sleep schedule would increase anxiety levels when utilized individually and together. Regarding fertility and embryos health, a high dose of melatonin decreased fertility and embryo health while disrupted sleep increased them. However, when combined, they decreased fertility and embryo health.

My time here at TRIP has been incredibly enriching, exposing me to lab and hypothesis-based research. The knowledge and experiences I’ve made here will stay with me for a lifetime, and I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to explore and learn. Thank you again to Dr. Leystra, Dr. Purdy, Dr. Valdes, Mr. Cozzone, our amazing TAs Anoosha and Niki, and my fellow TRIP classmates for making this experience unforgettable.

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Thank you for following my journey throughout TRIP these past few months!
Signing off one last time
​-Amritha Sakamuri