Antidepressants causing infertility!!!???? by Masa Murry

Wow! It’s already been four weeks since TRIP started, and it’s been an exceptionally interesting experience already. I got to perform an assay that measured how much glucose is present in flies of four different environments (a control, drug, stressor, and drug + stressor vial), and then was able to present my results. I also discovered that my results extremely contradicted my predictions and I received the exact opposite of my hypothesis. Performing the actual assay was considerably fun as I worried my colleagues would question my sanity when I enjoyed chopping the heads off several flies and disposing them into the morgue later…. (:

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More importantly, I finally discovered what I wanted to do for my independent project. I have been contemplating whether antidepressants can actually reduce the fertility of flies, as there have been small and insufficient amounts of research that answers my question pertaining to humans. I know several relatives and acquaintances that are prescribed some antidepressants and they also find it difficult to conceive children; therefore, I want to find out if the two correlate or if it is all just a coincidence. If all goes well, I will be able to test the effects of a certain antidepressant by counting the embryos that hatch from treated flies by using the female and/or male fertility assays.

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