The End of a Fly TRIP! by Aanya Deshpande

​Hi again! Thank you for joining me on my final blog post for TRIP.

​These 3 months have flown by quicker than I could react. The months spent in TRIP have been nothing short of transformative, informative, and fun! I genuinely have nothing but positive words to describe this program. Over my time in the lab, I can confidently say that I have learned so many new skills. From micropipetting to the malevolent forced swim assay, this program has taught me so much about science, research, and experimentation. I also learned how to manage my time effectively because of how much we were talking in the lab…

---

​I am happy to say that my independent project was successful in answering my question. My independent project answered the question of whether or not green tea could ameliorate the negative effects of alcohol on locomotion and mood. For this project, I performed the larval locomotion assay to assess the locomotion in juveniles, and I performed the forced swim assay to assess the mood of adults. 

---

​Initially, I struggled a lot with the forced swim assay because it required me to work with conscious flies. During the first few times I tried this assay, I struggled to catch the flies with my paintbrush, and I lost many flies during this time. However, I found a strategy to simply make the flies go unconscious and then hold them on the paintbrush until they wake up. Some of my flies were also unfortunately squished along the way, so some of my developmental data was abnormal. To solve this, I accounted for the dead flies in each vial, and I made a note in the data that some flies died. These challenges encouraged me to always be ready to find solutions and showed me the reality of experimentation.

---

​As I am writing this blog, I realize that I am going to miss coming to TRIP on Saturdays. I am going to miss having goofy conversations with the TAs, the very meaningful lectures, the flies (I can’t believe I am admitting that I am going to miss the flies…), and the great friends that I have made at TRIP. I would like to give shoutouts to TRIP’s inspiring mentors, Dr. Austria, Dr. Valdes, and Dr. Nick. I would also like to thank the super fun TAs, my fellow Session A + Session B TRIPsters, Fox Chase Cancer Center for providing us with this incredible opportunity, and William Tennent High School for letting us use the space to work in. I am also going to give my parents an honorable mention for driving me almost an hour every week, just so that I could work in the lab. I feel extremely honored to have had the opportunity to work with such inspiring and amazing individuals, and I cannot wait to see where we are all going to fly next! Thank you so much for reading this last TRIP blog, and I cannot wait to continue my TRIP exploring the vast world of science!

---