"Stay Gold TRIP, Stay Gold” by Justin Forbes

​Sadly TRIP is coming to a close, but these experiences will help me in the future. I have learned a lot from TRIP- from how to sort flies, to how to conduct many different and interesting assays on the flies. We worked on how to dilute drugs so that flies would be able to handle them. We learned about the Drosophila  life cycle and how to differentiate male flies from female flies. It was an amazing program!

​Technology is a big part of our lives today, which is both good and bad. We use it a lot because of how much it facilitates everyday tasks, but when we look closer we uncover the potential health risks. My project explores how Blue Light damages the retinal cells in your eyes and can increase your risk of getting cataracts or macular degeneration. I indirectly tested eye damage in flies through a color preference assay. I exposed half of the flies to blue light, and then ran them through the assay to see if there was any evidence of eye damage. There are also many antioxidants that can help protect against eye damage, especially Vitamin E which protects against free radical cells that can harm healthy eye tissue.

I’m definitely going to miss going to TRIP, and I wish I could do everything again next summer as well! Except for maybe the symposium… While I definitely learned a lot about how to communicate ideas, and how to present in front of people, I’m still trying to gain confidence as I speak in front of people, and TRIP has helped me with that. It has also given me lots of experience working through failure and communicating to an audience which will certainly help should I work in a lab or not. I hope that TRIP continues to be such an amazing program, and I loved that I was able to be a part of it!