At the Pupa Stage: The Halfway Update! by Hannah Tong

Hello, hello! Thanks for tuning in to officially the halfway point of my journey here at TRIP! It has definitely been an eventful 5 weeks, between learning more about my fellow TRIP classmates, doing copious amounts of homework and performing our kickoff experiments. From which I learned a ton about setting up experiments, how to use lab equipment, and working with fruit flies (which is a lot easier and less gross than I originally thought). 

For my kickoff experiment I tested the effects of vitamin D3 and head trauma on fly mobility. To do this I performed a negative geotaxis assay which is basically the fancy way of saying I smacked flies to the bottom of a labeled test vial and saw how far up they were able to climb in 3 seconds. Flies that were between 0-4 cm mark are considered inactive/have low mobility and those between 4-8 cm are considered active/have high mobility. This procedure was then repeated 7 times with each of the 4 conditions I created and contrary to my initial hypothesis, vitamin D3 - which has both neuroprotective and muscle protein synthesis abilities - did nothing to counteract the effects of head trauma in the flies!

While my kickoff experiment didn’t perfectly align with my original thoughts, it did kickstart my ideas for what I wanted to do for my independent project. With all the freedom TRIP gives us to explore almost whatever we want I definitely cycled through a lot of different ideas before landing on my official experiment. Inspired slightly by the fact I had 3 exams the next week, I want to test how diet (specifically high protein and high carb diets) can impact cognitive function. Especially considering nearly a third of Americans 65 and older suffer from some kind of cognitive impairment, it's super important we take care of our brains and that includes eating a proper diet! Both protein and carbohydrates have been tested for memory improvement with varying results and degrees of success so I’m interested in seeing what will happen in the following weeks.

​I'm so excited to officially get started on my independent project! Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates as we near our final symposium!