 Hi everyone! It’s been a little while! I cannot believe it is already the sixth week of TRIP! We just wrapped our Kickoff Experiments and will start our Independent Projects soon. Here’s a short recap of the results of my experiment: As a reminder, I chose to investigate the effects of head trauma on fly anxiety and whether St. John’s Wort, a known antidepressant, could counteract those effects. I hypothesized that the head trauma would increase anxiety, while the St. John’s Wort would somewhat mitigate these effects to a level of normalcy. To measure this, I used an open field test, or a centrophobism assay, where I measured how often the fruit flies crossed the center of a small dish, how long they spent in the center, and how much time they spent moving. The idea is that more anxious flies will spend more time on the outside of the dish, while the calmer flies will spend more time in the center. After some tedious data analysis, I found that my data did, in fact, validate my hypothesis. Flies with head trauma were found to be more stressed, but St. John’s Wort was also found to successfully reverse these effects (even more than I had originally thought!). I presented these findings to my TRIP instructors and peers, where I received some valuable feedback and listened to some fascinating presentations about the others’ tests and findings.
As for the next few weeks, my Independent Project will focus on natural vs. pharmaceutical anti-inflammatory substances on immune function. The inspiration for my project was actually my own medications. I’ve had severe Atopic Dermatitis my whole life, and although there are many types of treatments, a type of medication called a JAK inhibitor was one of the few to work for me. JAK, or Janus kinase, inhibitors are a type of medication designed to treat inflammatory conditions and overactive immune systems; they do this by blocking signals for specific enzymes in the body (lucky for me, the JAK/STAT pathway in Drosophila is very similar to that in humans and has been heavily researched). As I am currently on a JAK inhibitor myself, I was curious about how pharmaceutical treatments would affect the flies as opposed to more natural ones. To do this, I will be comparing the effects of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a JAK inhibitor found in green tea, and heparin, a coagulant (blood thinner) involved in JAK/STAT pathways. To mimic an “eczema-like” condition in an organism that doesn’t have skin, I will be simulating inflammation with hydrogen peroxide as my stressor. For this experiment, I will have six vials (control, EGCG only, heparin only, stressor only, EGCG + stressor, and heparin + stressor). As for measuring the effect on immune function, I will primarily be using the Melanization Assay, or as it’s otherwise affectionately been nick-named the “Larva Torture Assay.” Since the production of melanin (melanization) is a critical process in Drosophila healing, you can measure the activity of their immune system by subjecting them to a damaging environment (hence the “torture” part) and seeing how dark they get. Overall, although I am not certain how this project will go or what issues I may face down the road, I am beyond excited to begin.  I would like to give a HUGE thank-you to Dr. Maskalenko and Dr. Austria for even entertaining my idea of testing something related to skin. It means the world to me that I am able to test something so close to home. I will keep you all posted on what comes of my project in the weeks to come.
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 Hello everyone! I can’t believe 5 weeks have already gone by at TRIP! I feel like I have already learned so much through this program. Since the kickoff experiments have concluded, we are now starting our independent projects. For these projects, we have to prepare fly food, conduct different assays on our flies, and collect our own data.  Just as a reminder, my kickoff experiment revolved around investigating how intestinal inflammation in fruit flies affected their anxiety levels. To conduct this experiment, I had to sort the flies by gender on ice, place them into petri dishes, and record them moving in each dish. If the flies stayed closer to the edge of the dish, then they were considered to be more anxious. With the help of the video, I was able to measure the amount of time the flies spent near the center of the dish and the total amount of time spent moving. Through this experiment, I learned many lab practices, so that I could remember them for my independent project. For example, I learned to always keep my space organized and to read through the protocol thoroughly. My lab workspace got messy really fast! It is always good to stay as organized as possible to avoid any disturbance in the work area. Overall, the experiment was very exciting to conduct, and I was really excited to present my findings to my peers!  After the kickoff experiment concluded, I had to start thinking about ideas for my independent project. I knew I wanted to conduct an experiment based on mental health, and I am a heavy Redbull consumer. Naturally, my initial idea was to perform an experiment with energy drinks and how they can affect a fly’s memory, but there are already many studies about energy drinks and memory. Then, I changed my experimental question to how diazepam, a depressant, and fluoxetine, an antidepressant, could affect a fly’s locomotion and mental health. The reason this idea was not feasible was that I could not acquire these drugs over the counter. Now, the idea I am officially using is how green tea and alcohol can affect a fruit fly’s locomotion and depression! My ideas needed many tweaks, but in the end, my peers, Dr. Austria, and Dr. Valdes helped me create a new, feasible idea that still revolves around mental health.  To study this, I will have vials of flies with normal food, food with only alcohol in it, food with only green tea supplements in it, and food with both green tea supplements and alcohol. My plans to experiment with this experimental question will be to conduct the larval locomotion assay and the forced swim assay.  Overall, I have learned a lot about laboratory practices over these past few weeks, and I am very excited to see how my independent project experiment will turn out!
 Hello everyone! Some time has passed and we are around half way through the program, which is crazy. These past few weeks I have learned so much from TRIP itself, the instructors, and the others around me. The project I have been working on is the kickoff experiment, where I looked at the effect of soap and Vitamin D3 on adult fly anxiety. I hypothesized the soap, which increases intestinal inflammation, will increase behaviors of anxiety in adult flies. Furthermore, Vitamin D3 will be able to mitigate these effects. To determine the levels of anxiety in the fruit flies, I placed one fly in each of the three agar-petri dishes and observed to see how many times they crossed the center of the dish. For this, I had to take three flies from each vial to gather results. If the flies cross the center of the petri dish more often, it is indicated that they have lower anxiety levels compared to the flies who do not cross the center. Overall, I found that Vitamin D3 did help to decrease the effects of the soap to a certain extent. This gave me a feel of what to expect for my individual experiment.
 Hello! It’s been a speedy five weeks, but a lot has happened since my last blog. My first few weeks in this program have been phenomenal. So far, I've made a lot of new friends and morgued a lot of flies, which leaves me with some conflicting emotions. I am so grateful for all of the people I have met, especially because of how new so many things have been to me these past couple of weeks. With some hard work and the help of my peers, I've finished my kickoff experiment and begun my independent project.  Firstly, I have finished and presented my kickoff experiment. My question was about analyzing the effects of Ginkgo Biloba and head trauma on the sociability of fruit flies. In this experiment, I learned how to go about experimenting with and analyzing model organisms. This will help me in my independent project. I also presented my findings to my peers and instructors. This gave me some great constructive feedback and will help me prepare to present at the end of TRIP. Overall, I am very happy with all that I have learned in the first couple TRIP sessions.  Now, I've begun to work on my independent project. The topic I have settled on is the effects of manganese poisoning and milk thistle on offspring. I will be looking into generational effects to analyze if this form of heavy metal poisoning affects the overall health of offspring. This means that I will have a lot of flies, but I am very excited. I chose this because for lithium batteries, people need to mine manganese. The production of lithium batteries has only begun to such a high degree in recent years, so it is unknown the generational effects of poisoning from this metal. I am interested in if there will be generational effects, what that could look like, and if it can be mitigated with milk thistle. In conclusion, this will be a fun approaching couple of weeks.
 Hello, my name is Sharizoda, and my peers and I have recently conducted our Kickoff Experiments. It was certainly a novel experience, working with fruit flies in a professional setting. In contrast, I felt very out of place for a little more than a hot second, but that's all right since the purpose of the Kickoff Experiment is meant to prepare you for your own design, which means making mistakes at this time is okay!  My Kickoff Experiment was centered around whether circadian rhythms would affect fruit fly anxiety, which I tested with a centrophobism assay, also known as the open field test. The drug I used for this test was rhodiola, an adaptogen, which is a part of a class of natural substances that help the body resist stress and fatigue. I more or less learned to accurately create the diluted solution for food using measurements and micropipettes, which I'm relieved I figured out how to do (especially thanks to my peers and TA!). My stressor was darkness, intended to disrupt the circadian rhythm or natural biological clock in the fruit flies, which was simply achieved by wrapping the fly vials in foil. This was all for the setup of my experiment, which progressed rather smoothly.  To actually conduct my assay, I first had to create a thin layer of agar in petri dishes to limit fruit fly movement to a 2-Dimensional plane, ensuring that they could not fly or jump. This part was super fun to do with my friends! Things did go a little downhill while recording my data, as my flies were much less active than what is considered normal. This was a hiccup that other TRIP members faced as well, and we formed a thorough hypothesis that we were conspired against by the fruit flies. (The fruit flies knew what they were doing!) Noticing something was wrong the first time I collected data, I decided to run another trial for my control group, which was not perfect but definitely better than my first run. In spite of this, the most nerve-wracking part of the Kickoff Experiment was most certainly the presentation. I feel like the sheer number of flips my heart did during the span of those 5 minutes could make it a world-class acrobat. The positive thing about the presentation is that the feedback and commentary will certainly aid in preparing you for the future symposium.  With the end of the Kickoff, the planning for the Independent Project officially began. Having options open to whatever you can imagine is both a blessing and a curse. I ended up choosing to do an experiment comparing the effect of two different wavelengths of light on senescence, which is the process of aging. Blue light is something that everyone in the modern age is exposed to for frequent periods of time, which can have a detrimental impact on the body's circadian rhythms and strain certain parts of the body, like the eyes. In contrast, other types of wavelengths, like the red light spectrum, have become popular for their therapeutic and antiaging effects. For my independent project design, I chose to compare blue light to green light, as red light is not visible to fruit flies, and have recently learned during my research process that green light is also used as a therapy method for different things, like migraines and sleep. The independent project is something that my peers and I must work hard on, so I wish good luck to us!
(੭ˊ꒳ˋ)੭✧  Hello everyone! It’s hard to believe that it’s already been almost a month since I started TRIP, having completed my kickoff experiment and now steering towards my independent project. I’ve learned so much in these past few weeks, figuring out how to sort flies, perform assays, collect and analyze data, and so much more! For my kickoff experiment, I explored the effects of Melatonin and disrupted circadian rhythms on fruit fly sociability. To do this, I had to put my flies to sleep using ice, sort them on the ice, carefully place them into small chambers, and finally take photos and measure the average distance between the flies using a program called FIJI. I learned that the larger the average distance is between the flies, the less social they are, and the smaller the average distance is between them, the more social they are. My results ended up contradicting my hypothesis, revealing that melatonin and constant darkness actually increased fruit fly sociability instead of decreasing it. I was also surprised to see that instead of the effects getting stronger when both were present, sociability ended up returning to normal when both were present. Seeing everyone else’s projects was also extremely compelling and the kickoff experiment definitely helped kickstart ideas for what I wanted to do for my independent project.  While performing my kickoff experiment, I realized that I found studying sleep extremely interesting and decided that I wanted to venture back into the world of sleep for my independent project through sleep deprivation. Not only is it extremely common in teenagers, but I also find myself deprived of sleep sometimes as well while juggling academics and extracurriculars in my schedule. On the dietary side of things, I knew I was interested in testing the effects of teas and their impacts on possibly remedying the effects of sleep deprivation. My family drinks a lot of tea as it is- and I’ve always been interested in herbs and their effects as home remedies like tea to alleviate symptoms of sleep deprivation like anxiety. While doing more research, I learned that sleep deprivation can significantly increase anxiety levels along with discovering that Chamomile and Ashwagandha tea are popular options for calming people down and relieving anxiety, leading me to investigate if they can mitigate the impacts of sleep deprivation on fruit fly anxiety.
Through gaining more skill and confidence in the first few weeks, I’m excited to dive deeper into my independent project and the results I’ll uncover along the way. See you next time, and remember to get enough sleep  Time has gone by a lot quicker than I expected! This past month has been super fun and I’ve been learning a lot of new things. We learned how to knock flies out using CO2 and ice, sort flies, make fly food, make grape plates, count total vs. empty pupae to quantify development, and more. I conducted my kickoff experiment which investigated the impact of melatonin and the disruption of circadian rhythms (via darkness) on fruit fly sociability. I really enjoyed the Social Space Assay which measured the flies’ sociability because it was fun to see the flies move around and hang out with each other.
 We also came up with our independent projects! The research question for my independent project is “How does chamomile tea versus decaffeinated green tea affect fly anxiety and depression?” I’m asking this question because chamomile and decaffeinated green tea have been associated with lessened anxiety and depression, and anxiety and depression have been shown to go hand in hand. I want to see whether chamomile or decaffeinated green tea better alleviate anxiety and depression. I thought this question would be fun to ask because I like tea, and I have loved ones that like tea. I’ve seen how harmful anxiety and depression can be, and I want to investigate ways to mitigate it.  I am really excited to conduct this research, and to discover something new! Although I am a little worried about how much time I have in the lab per week to get everything done, it’s all a learning experience and I’m sure I will get better each week.
 Hi everyone! My name is Dakshvir Salaria, and I’m currently a sophomore at Penncrest High School. I decided to get involved with TRIP because being able to conduct real, proper research has always been a goal of mine. Most of my experiences with science came from classes and experiments that were structured for you, so the idea of having the chance to do my own independent research was something that definitely stuck with me.  Outside of the lab, I love exploring lots of different interests. I’m currently teaching myself the basics of photography, which actually has made me notice the smaller details in life. I also love being outside and spending time in nature, whether it’s just going out and taking a hike while listening to music or just observing what's around me. I love learning more about science every day. As a member of Envirothon for my school, I get to do deep dives into Environmental Science and Ecology, a passion of mine. In my free time, I enjoy listening to music, learning new things, swimming, playing video games, and hanging out with my friends and my family.
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