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Hey everyone, I can’t believe TRIP is already over. My experiences in this program really allowed me to grow as a student while also making my summer amazing. This program taught me to think through failure, self sufficiency and vital presentation skills. I highly recommend TRIP for anyone interested in science because it will increase your passion and show you life in the lab. I am grateful for this program and will miss working with everyone. As someone had said, time passes away, but sweet memories always stay. In terms if my independent project, I got some interesting results. I debunked the anxiety theory as there was no trend. Also, Zantac decreased the amount of gut bacteria and changed the diversity. I was also surprised to see that the percent eclosion decreased. Perhaps the fact that Zantac inhibits Histamine 2 (which acts as a neurotransmitter) is responsible for the decrease in eclosion. However, there is one thing that is clear, there is more to this acid reducer than meets the eye. 
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Wow! What an incredible experience! I had so much fun during my time at the TRIP program and, honestly, I wish it would keep going! I made a lot of great friends that I know I will continue to talk to for years to come. This experience is one that I will remember for a lifetime. As for my project, things are going well. I am almost done editing my slideshow and I’m ready to start practice presenting it. I’m a little nervous for the final symposium but not too much. My project yielded some interesting results, as it turned out that the constantly smoking flies were actually the least anxious. This makes sense since cigarettes are supposed to help you relax, but this still surprised me.  Hey guys! Hope you guys had a wonderful weekend and are enjoying your days off. I am really excited to see how my flies have fared against their higher dosage of head trauma when given painkillers to relieve stress on the brain. I bet you are wondering why I gave the flies’ head trauma and painkillers? Well I’m glad you asked! My independent project is to test whether tylenol or excedrin will help with a concussion. The reason behind this experiment is because we’ve all had headaches before. As for me personally I take tylenol or excedrin depending on the pain level of the headache. So I figured with fruit flies being 70% percent genetically like humans, I wanted to test if given a concussion, would tylenol or excedrin work for them like it has worked for me on numerous occasions.
As for the internship itself I have no complaints whatsoever. I couldn’t have asked for a different internship. It’s fun and we are very interactive with one another. The support of not only the teachers, but my peers, and student helpers as well is outstanding, Not only that, but this internship combines my two favorite subjects both math and science where I can create and experiment things of my choice. It’s very fun and the people are more than friendly. Being involved in the internship was one of the most memorable things about my summer and I’m happy I could spend part of my summer within the TRIP community. Hi again everyone! We’re currently halfway through the TRIP program and I honestly cannot imagine a better summer without TRIP. I admit, the first few days of lecture were a bit of a struggle since there was so much to learn about the lab, but I wouldn’t change anything about my experience at TRIP. There are so many amazing people to learn from and to work with, it’s an incredible experience I recommend to everyone!  Since my last blog, we’ve already begun our independent projects. For my project, I’m studying the long term effects of Metformin on development and cognitive function. If I were reading that sentence two weeks ago, I would not have understood a word past “effects”, so I completely understand that it sounds very foreign. Metformin is a drug used for people with Type 2 diabetes and there are a few mixed studies regarding whether Metformin has an affect on memory. I plan on studying the movement of flies over time to see if increasing doses of Metformin can have an effect on cognitive function and development. So far I’ve set up my food vials with flies to study this week. I’m really excited to see how far they’ve come since I’ve last seen them. Fingers crossed they haven’t died!
 So, we are more than halfway through TRIP...wow...and we had to establish our independent projects. Being decisive has always been a challenge for me. So, at one point in the brainstorming process, I ended up with a bunch of different ideas and directions I could take those ideas. However, after stressing about picking my project and after hashing out possible research ideas and talking with family and people at TRIP, I had finally decided. Below is a little intro and what I’m thinking I’ll do, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from TRIP: not everything works out and I’ll most likely have to go different routes and change my plans, but that’s O.K. Chances are you have drank from a plastic water bottle, eaten food that came from a can, or witnessed a plastic container labeled as “BPA free.” But what exactly is BPA? It stands for Bisphenol A. and is an endocrine disruptor, which means it likes to mess with the hormones in our bodies. Hormones help regulate so many of our body’s functions like growth, mood, and fertility which makes BPA all the more interesting to investigate. Because most humans are exposed to BPA in their everyday lives, I wanted to test if BPA negatively affect growth and development, and if this could lead to issues with motility in larvae and adults and overall health. I plan to do a larvae locomotion assay to test how the BPA affects the young, and I plan to do a negative geotaxis assay to test adult flies to see effects on the old and motility. I will then do a microbiome assay to take a look into the gut bacteria to indicate overall health. I wanted to try to provide some type of remedy for the effects of BPA and I found I could possibly do that with Kimchi (a fermented Korean side dish)! I hypothesized that the use of probiotics, the “good bacteria" that is found in kimchi, could help remedy the effects of BPA since probiotics have been found to eat the BPA and cause it to come out of the body through feces! Sounds appetizing! So I will be testing kimchi and BPA on the flies and see what results I yield! Life at TRIP has been great. I love that the other students and I have bonded more, I mean we’ve eaten food from a food truck in the pouring rain together. Everyone is constantly supportive of each other, and it really showed when we shared our ideas for our independent projects. I learn so many new concepts/techniques from TRIP’s wonderful director, instructors, TAs, and peers each class. This program has really helped drive my curiosity in science and I am so grateful I get to have this experience. Moving forward to the future classes I will have to be in charge of planning and conducting my own independent project, yikes, I'll admit I am lil nervous, a lil scared, but a LOT excited. :) |
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