Kicking Into High Gear! by Michael Liu

Hey everyone, guess who’s back! These last weeks at TRIP have flown by, and it’s hard to think that I’m halfway through! Lately, I’ve been working on my kickoff experiment, in which I looked at how Vitamin D3 and sugar affect fly motility. I predicted that the high sugar diet would cause inflammation in the flies and reduce their motility, and that the Vitamin D3 would help mitigate the negative effects from the sugar. This experiment was a great way to see how to properly conduct research in a lab setting, while giving me ample time to consider what I wanted to research myself. I was able to learn some experimental techniques that were completely new to me at the time, like how to conduct the negative geotaxis assay. Although the name certainly seemed scary at first, nothing felt better than quickly running through trials and jotting my data down onto a notebook, and later into a spreadsheet (shoutout to Dr. Nick for giving me a hand with the whole process!). 

---

When I learned that I had to present my kickoff experiment to my peers, I was, frankly, a little bit terrified. While school had certainly thrown my way a few presentations here and there, I was still unsure of how my presentation skills were. After whipping up a slideshow, I came to TRIP and presented without a second thought. And just like that, it was over. As I went to sit down, thinking over the feedback from the instructors, I felt that I had improved- even if only by a little. And that was enough for me. 

---

The independent project had always felt so far away, yet so anticipated- and yet, as I finished off my kickoff experiment, it was suddenly right in front of me. I, of course, had no issue picking what I wanted to experiment with: goji berries. These bright red, usually dried berries have been perched upon countertops in bags and floating in bowls ever since I was a kid. And while I now trust my parents when they advise me to eat my greens, I can’t help but be uncertain about why I should eat these reds. The true health benefit of these berries, a superfood that has (according to my mom) been ‘rising in popularity lately’, had always seemed so elusive to me. And now is my time to see it for myself. I hypothesize that my mom will be right, of course, but being ‘good for you’ is not very specific. So, I will be looking at the physical health of the flies through the negative geotaxis assay that I had practiced, as well as bringing in a larval locomotion assay that I had not tried before. After all, if these flies are model organisms for humans, then I suppose I’m closer to being a larva than I am to being an adult. 

---

Overall? It’s been great! Getting to make new friends and learn new things has been beyond fun. The flies that I got to take home on day 1 made for wonderful companions while they were with me (let’s say they’re in a better place now). ‘Til next time!