Flying Through Time! by Aanya Deshpande

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.

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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!

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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. 

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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. 

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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!

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