Lasting Lessons Learned From The Lab by Ethan Kang

Hello there, I’m glad you found me a third time! It’s sad to say this will be my final blog post, although I would like to take this as a moment to reflect on everything that I’ve learned. Although it may have only been a few weeks since I last wrote, it feels like it’s only been a few days. Despite all of the time-consuming fly sorting and assay performing, this experience ended all too quickly. Since the last time I wrote, I started my independent research project, worked on conducting research in the lab, and compiled all of my results into a massive spreadsheet.

As a reminder, I tested different doses of monosodium glutamate (MSG), a common food-additive prevalent in a vast variety of foods including my favorite Chick-fil-A sandwiches and Doritos. My family has cautioned against eating foods with MSG for much of my life because of its alleged effects on health. I put these claims to the test by observing MSG’s effects on development, which also extended to fertility in male and female fruit flies. I systematically set up my four fruit fly vials, each with varying amounts of MSG in their food. I extrapolated the amount of food that a typical human would consume down to a fruit fly, with the help of Dr. Purdy and Dr. Leystra. Varying the dosage of MSG would allow me to see an accurate representation of how different doses may cause different results. I put those flies to the test by carefully monitoring their development from the vials, counting how many offspring each condition had every week. I also executed the female and male fertility assays in order to see how each vial’s flies have been reacting in regard to their fertility.

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The female fertility assay, a three-hour-long process of throwing a bunch of your fruit flies into a tube and seeing how many embryos appear, sought to detect if a correlation existed between the dose of MSG and the number of embryos. This otherwise tedious chore certainly seemed quicker and more fun with the support of a few of my peers completing similar tasks. Somehow, this on-the-surface repetitive errand did not bore me; rather, it excited and motivated me to work further toward my looming goal: completing the experiment and drawing conclusions. The slightly less time-consuming activity of the male fertility assay consisted of placing individual males into vials with a few females. After a week or two, the vials whose males successfully mated and produced offspring were considered fertile. Fortunately for tasty food enjoyers, I found no apparent correlation between the MSG dose and fertility, at least in fruit flies. I have also concluded that fruit flies given high doses of MSG produced, more or less, the same number of offspring as organisms receiving no MSG.

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From my brief yet formative time spent in the lab, I have gained a plethora of valuable skills such as working with laboratory equipment like micropipettes and sorting fruit flies on CO2 pads. In addition to the physical skills, I have also earned unparalleled skills working with my peers and I must thank them for their continued support in helping me throughout the entire program. And, I have proved, scientifically, that MSG has no obvious bearing on health. TRIP has been a rewarding experience from undivided meetings with professionals to hands-on actions in working with real fruit flies and conducting true experiments. I plan on using these skills sometime in the future and will never forget the invaluable aptitudes that I have acquired throughout the course of this program. I am immensely grateful for Dr. Purdy, Dr. Leystra, all of my TRIPmates, my parents and carpool for driving, and all of those who made this fantastic experience possible. One more thing—I started a challenge to wear a different hoodie for every single week of TRIP. I have done so as planned, although it may have been tougher near the end! Lastly, I would like to thank you, reader, for reading my blog. I am excited to see where this experience will lead me in the future!