Taurine and Flies by Venus Agbadan

Hey, it’s Venus again! The first few weeks of TRIP have been awesome and have gone by fairly quickly. 

We started our screen projects where we were given a drug, stressor, and assay to complete, so we got to practice with lab procedures and presenting before we do the real thing. I was assigned to Senna, a laxative, and artificial sugar (Truvia). I was testing how they interact with the microbiome in flies’ guts and learned to do the microbiome assay! This assay was very long and time sensitive, but luckily Jackie, a fellow TRIP student, was also doing the microbiome assay. Going through it with her, Logan (one of our lovely TAs) and Dr. Gardiner helped me stay on point. We ended by presenting the data that we obtained in our screens. It was kind of scary, but the feedback I got after my presentation was really helpful and will make me feel more confident in my next one. Everyone in the morning session also had amazing slides. ​

Now, we have started working on our own independent project. I have decided to test the effects of taurine, a common ingredient in energy drinks, and Zoloft, an anti-depressant and anti-anxiety pills, on the cognitive function in larvae. I want to test this because as a junior in high school, my peers and I have extremely busy schedules that often result in drinking energy drinks such as Bang!, Monster, and Redbull. Unlike coffee, these energy drinks don’t just have caffeine, but ingredients such as taurine. I am curious to see how the drinks we use to keep us alert and awake in class affect how much we’re actually learning. Furthermore, many high schoolers suffer from anxiety and take SSRIs such as Zoloft. A lot of this anxiety and stress sometimes even has a direct correlation to school. I thought it would be interesting to see how taurine and Zoloft interact to discover if the capability of teens with anxiety to learn when they drink energy drinks compares to those who do not take anxiety medicine. 

I’m excited to start my project and keep moving forward!

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