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Regular updates from students in TRIP

An Exotic Experiment by Maha Vijayakrishnan

10/26/2019

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For my independent project, I have been experimenting with the exotic bitter gourd, which hails from Kerala, India. I want to test its effects on the microbiome and am hoping to see a significant positive result in gut health. Making the gut healthier can ameliorate a lot of health problems or help prevent potential diseases in humans such as diabetes or colon cancer. In order to analyze the gut for flies, I must perform a microbiome assay, where I swab their digestive systems onto an agar plate and count the number of different colonies that result from their diet.
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To prepare for this, I created 4 experimental conditions in terms of what I am injecting in the fly’s food: bitter gourd juice only, sugar only, bitter gourd and sugar, and a control condition. I had to dilute the serving sizes with water since a fly’s serving size is way smaller than a human’s. 
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However, not everything went as smoothly as I had hoped it to. First of all, a major setback I have experienced is smashing the bitter gourd into juice in the first place. The fruit/vegetable (it can be classified as either) turned out to be drier than I expected it to be! It was hard to smash it into juice, so I tried the best I could with a mortar and pestle. The bitter gourd mostly infused into the water, which thankfully made it easier to put into the fly food.
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Turns Out Getting Flies to Vape Isn’t So Easy After All by Ari Sasson

10/25/2019

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“Mom, I need cigarettes”

“You need WHAT? YOU MAY NOT BE SMOKING”

“Mom, it's for a science project”
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And thus began my independent project: studying the effect of nicotine on fly learning capability. If you’ve watched the news for at least five minutes in the past 3 years, you’ve probably heard of this small flash drive shaped thing called a JUUL. It’s everywhere, especially high schools. Because of its large presence in youth culture, I decided to study how using such a device might impact academic success. Now, I ran into a big problem really quick. Flies can’t vape. SO? Just put nicotine in their food, right? Well, what sets JUUL’s apart from other ways to consume nicotine is the high concentration it releases at once, and that wouldn't be accurately replicated with nicotine in the fly food, so, I tried a few ideas out. 
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The first thing I tried to do was suck the vape from a JUUL out with a syringe. This isn’t my proudest idea, but the thought process was in the right direction (It really wasn't). I bought a syringe, contacted a friend with a JUUL, and tried using the syringe. It didn't work. 
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Back to the drawing board I went.
At this point, It was the day before our first lab day, so I opted for putting nicotine in the fly food. This is where my mom came in. After a few minutes of discussion, she obliged. It turned out that there was a nicotine solution in the lab on Thursday, meaning I didn’t need the cigarettes. This was probably for the better, mostly because I have no clue how to get the nicotine out of one...
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I still wanted to simulate vaping as closely as possible, so I looked for a way to give the flies as much nicotine as I could in a short period of time. I knew I had to use the cigarettes to make a nicotine solution, so I opted to use part of the stock solution to make a 10 times strength nicotine solution that I would give to the flies while they completed the memory assay. The goal behind this is to give the flies an elevated nicotine dose directly before and after learning the memory assay to simulate high school students using a vape device while in school or at home studying.
Troubleshooting these problems makes me even more excited to see how my experiment turns out. I don’t know if the nicotine will have an effect at all, or if the 10x solution is lethal, or how closely this would simulate humans, but I can’t wait to find that out. As I head into my first data collection day, I can address issues that come up, solve problems I don’t even know exist yet, and continue to refine my project until the final presentation.
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Let's Talk About My TRIP by Amira Phillips

10/24/2019

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​​Hello! Welcome to my blog.
​
​I am Amira Phillips, if you did not already know. So let me update you on what has been going on so far. I am a few weeks into the program. Currently, we are working on our independent projects. 
Yes, just like it sounds... us students have the opportunity to create our own projects using fruit flies, of course. While I was thinking of something to base my experiment, I kept in mind I wanted  to research something different and new; a subject that interests me, since it is my project!

​I decided to design an experiment that could potentially answer the question “
How does sexual enhancement affect female fertility development?” I decided to go with a drug store, off brand Viagra. So far I have completed my drug calculations, which took what felt like forever and were really hard but also really important. I have set up vials with my drug and flies, and I also even sorted extra flies which I will be mixing into my current vials.
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You may ask, what about my predictions? I think that my flies will begin to produce very rapidly and that the offspring with have developmental defects such as slow development or altered behaviors. I do not have any data to share yet but I will soon. 
My collective experience here at TRIP has been very different than what I expected and very different than the last summer program I did at Temple University. The days are not too long which is a plus, and we are able to go get lunch which is really nice and refreshing. My favorite part is how there is always something hands-on for me to do. I have been learning a lot so far and I hope that continues to happen as the program progresses.
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Antioxidants, Blue Light, Cataracts, and Another Wonderful Week at TRIP! by Justin Forbes

10/18/2019

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In this day and age most, if not all of us, are exposed to computers, phones, tv, and other electronic devices for extended periods of time. There are many recent studies about blue light, or the light that comes from man-made technology, and its effect on our bodies. While blue light has been known to influence circadian rhythms, it has also been shown to have detrimental effects on your eyes; it can damage photoreceptors, increase chances of making people blind when they grow older, and put people at increased risk of some eye diseases such as cataracts, macular degeneration, or dry eyes.
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Antioxidants have been shown to be able to protect against free radical damage in cells, and protect them from some types of damage. In my Independent Project I will be looking at which types of antioxidants reduce damage done to the eyes by blue light. In my project I will be exposing adult flies to blue light, but some of the flies will have certain antioxidants in their food. I will have three separate antioxidants, Holy Basil, Selenium, and Vitamin E, and some containers have combinations of two of these antioxidants, and one vial has all three combined. So, while the flies are being exposed to this blue light they will be ingesting antioxidants to hopefully combat the damage. There is one control group that will not be ingesting antioxidants, but will be exposed to the blue light, and there is another control group that will not be eating antioxidants nor will it be exposed to blue light.

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I will then compare the damage done in a new assay I hope to write with Dr. Amanda Purdy. In another established assay, when flies were given the option to feed on normal or red dyed food, no matter which sugar water it was, the majority of the flies went to eat from the red dyed food. Hopefully, we can use this tidbit of information, and when our control group with no exposure tries the same thing the same result will happen. We can then turn it into a percentage for how many flies ate from the red dyed food, and compare it to the flies exposed to blue light. Hopefully the other control group that has been exposed to blue light will not be able to properly see the red colors after exposure because of some eye damage from overexposure, and therefore not eat from the red colored dye like the other control group. Then the flies that have been eating antioxidants will go through the same assay, and we will see if the percentages of flies that went to the red dye is larger or smaller. If it’s larger than the antioxidants did their job, however, if it’s smaller than it seems that the blue light did some decent damage. 
Everything has been wonderful these past few weeks at TRIP! We showcased presentations a week ago, and it was a great learning experience for me, even though I was definitely more than a bit nervous… Though I got through it, thankfully, and everybody provided nice comments and helpful feedback on how I could have improved my presentation. I definitely learned a lot, and hopefully my presentation at the symposium won’t be too terrible…
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Also, I can sometimes be slower than people when doing projects, and I try my best to try and keep up with everybody while not lowering the focus and precision I use when doing the projects. However, one day, I happened to go over the time allotted, and I needed to put the drugs in the fly food, and then put in the flies. Yet, there were lots of people who stayed as long as they could to help me finish up, and with the help of everybody I was able to finish my work that day even though I still went over the time. ​
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​​I am so thankful for the supportive atmosphere here at TRIP, and the way everybody here is willing to help me find routes to overcome my failures.
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Flies, Fertility, Fun Times by Olivia Bamford

10/15/2019

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​WOW
-- is it really the end already?! I can hardly believe that the symposium was just a few days ago; it’s kind of insane.  There’s a lot to say in just a few paragraphs, but hopefully I do my experience with this program justice.
First, I shall update you all on the details of my project--all of them, good, bad, and ugly alike.  To start, I didn’t quite end up researching what I was initially interested in.  Despite multiple attempts at construction, I was unable to perfect the courtship chambers for the courtship assay that I was creating, so I had to take a step back from physical male courting abilities and instead look at the next step in that process: male fertility.  That is, instead of looking at the technical aspects of fly sex among males, I looked at the aftermath of copulation. 
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After researching the effects of my drugs (caffeine & alcohol) on male fertility, I realized that there really weren’t many studies done on what affects male fertility in general; we have so many things women should or should not do when trying to conceive, after giving birth, and everything in between, but there is a severe lack of accompanying male studies.  So, in an effort to unlock the best way to enhance male fertility, I decided to look at the effect of my drugs on the number of progeny (offspring) produced by male fruit flies.  Overall, I learned that none of my drugs significantly increased male fertility, but that isn’t to say they don’t in other concentrations, combinations, etc.
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Here is my presentation where I explain in more detail the findings of my project:
Moving on, I have loved each and every moment of TRIP.  A friend of mine recently asked me how my July went.  My response?  I told him that every part of July that involved TRIP was fantastic, great, and amazing--everything else was was just alright.  Coming into the program, I was extremely apprehensive that I would be placed in an environment where everyone around me would understand things much more than I; ultimately, however, I’ve come to learn so much from this experience.  Not only did I gain basic lab skills (micropipetting, sorting flies, making stock solutions, etc.), but I also faced many, many challenges.  The best example I can think of is my failed courtship project, which showed me that even though I ended up doing something completely different than I had wanted, I didn’t feel dissatisfied with my work--in fact, I felt even more motivated to do something that worked.
​The “failure” didn’t prove to be a roadblock, but rather a detour.
In addition, Dr. Amanda Purdy, Mr. Robert Herbstritt and all of the TAs helped challenge and push me to think outside of the box, to problem solve, and to set my own standards high.  If it wasn’t for them, I do not think I would have given a presentation as confidently as I did.  Finally, my classmates, from both sessions, were extremely supportive as well!  While we may have not been the most talkative group, we all were very ready to help the other out if need be, which was a very nice environment to be exposed to.
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Overall, I am incredibly grateful for my experience with the TRIP Initiative.  What was something that I approached with slight discomfort, I came out of it loving.  I’m very excited to stay active within the TRIP family, and I can’t wait to see what comes next for me because of this experience.
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Thank you all for taking the time to read my blogs, I hope you’ve enjoyed them!
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"Stay Gold TRIP, Stay Gold” by Justin Forbes

10/6/2019

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​Sadly TRIP is coming to a close, but these experiences will help me in the future. I have learned a lot from TRIP- from how to sort flies, to how to conduct many different and interesting assays on the flies. We worked on how to dilute drugs so that flies would be able to handle them. We learned about the Drosophila  life cycle and how to differentiate male flies from female flies. It was an amazing program!

​Technology is a big part of our lives today, which is both good and bad. We use it a lot because of how much it facilitates everyday tasks, but when we look closer we uncover the potential health risks. My project explores
how Blue Light damages the retinal cells in your eyes and can increase your risk of getting cataracts or macular degeneration. I indirectly tested eye damage in flies through a color preference assay. I exposed half of the flies to blue light, and then ran them through the assay to see if there was any evidence of eye damage. There are also many antioxidants that can help protect against eye damage, especially Vitamin E which protects against free radical cells that can harm healthy eye tissue.
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I’m definitely going to miss going to TRIP, and I wish I could do everything again next summer as well! Except for maybe the symposium… While I definitely learned a lot about how to communicate ideas, and how to present in front of people, I’m still trying to gain confidence as I speak in front of people, and TRIP has helped me with that. It has also given me lots of experience working through failure and communicating to an audience which will certainly help should I work in a lab or not. I hope that TRIP continues to be such an amazing program, and I loved that I was able to be a part of it! 
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