Blog 3 by Mariacristina Calcagno

As I think back on the past semester and my time in TRIP, I want to start off by thanking Dr. Leystra, Dr. Purdy, Mr. Cozzone, Dr. Valdes,  teaching assistants Niki and Anoosha, and my TRIP peers for making my time in the lab so incredible! I learned so much, appreciated everybody’s willingness to help, answer my questions, and provide feedback on my work, and enjoyed all our lab conversations! With the knowledge I acquired and the people I met, I know that TRIP has been an invaluable experience. As I write, it is the Monday after my final presentation, but, though it may sound strange, I already miss seeing the assignments on Google Classroom, filling out a weekly plan, and organizing data. 
I remember having trouble settling on an independent project idea—I had so many! If you checked out my last blog, I mentioned that I was thinking about testing the generational effects of different brands of a vitamin on the flies. Well, that plan certainly changed.
I envisioned a project that would be, in some way or another, tied into public health, metabolism, and/or development—areas that I am interested in learning more about and pursuing. So, I ended up looking at the effects of sleep deprivation on progeny/larval health; specifically, I looked at glucose levels and larval activity. I also observed if vitamin B6, which has a role in both melatonin synthesis/ circadian rhythm control and metabolism, could reverse potential negative effects of the sleep deprivation. Prior to starting my experiment, I researched statistics regarding sleep deprivation’s impact on metabolism and also the impacts of maternal sleep deprivation on offspring, given that I was sleep depriving the adults and testing their larvae. 

My results were interesting; over an average of four replicates (with 10-15 larvae in each), I found that glucose levels in the sleep deprived flies dropped very slightly compared to the control. In terms of activity, I used a locomotion assay in which I scooped several larvae per condition out of their food and recorded the movement of 5 of them over a one-minute period; I then counted the number of contractions, or little steps, that each larvae made. Over three trials, the averages showed a significant decrease in activity for the sleep-deprived flies; adding B6 to sleep-deprived vials brought the levels up, but not nearly to the point of having activity comparable to the control. 
As I read through TRIP blogs fro previous students, I noticed that many students remarked how quickly the program had gone by. I did not understand how true that would be—I cannot believe that it has been three months since I stepped into William Tennent High School for the first time and met so many wonderful people! Thank you again to everybody who has made this opportunity possible.

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