Fruit Fly Frenzy by Shawnette James

The first couple weeks  of TRIP have been an experience like no other. It’s been fun getting to know everyone and learning more about them. I thought that conducting our introductory experiments was quite interesting because it allowed us to get familiar with things like making fly food, learning about different ways that we could stress our flies, and exploring the development of the flies. Fly development has been cool to experience because you’re watching a whole cycle of life unfold. ​

I think my favorite part of the program so far has been the start of our independent projects. I enjoy that we are able to use our own interests to create projects that we are passionate about and can share with others. In my introductory experiment I performed a Negative Geotaxis Assay, which basically measures the distance traveled of the fruit flies. It is an experiment that is used to quantify a fly’s locomotion or activity, and after completing this I knew I wanted to look into locomotion for my independent experiment.

I decided to see if caffeine and/or melatonin would increase the energy levels of fruit flies after they have been deprived of sleep. I chose this for my project because I commonly face the circumstances of being sleep deprived and trying to wake myself up with coffee, or being unable to sleep and having to take melatonin. I know that I am not the only one who goes through things like this, and I wanted to see if these two drugs would increase the energy of the flies. I believe it is a common and relatable topic, but it has not been tested on fruit flies yet, so I would like to see what could come of this project. I will be feeding my fruit flies caffeine and melatonin separately first, then combining the two drugs. Then I will repeat this process but expose these flies to constant light. I’m excited to see how everything turns out!