Weeks are flying by! by Alan Meng

Welcome back! In the span of only a couple of weeks, so much has been done! I’ve learned so many skills and was able to gauge my strengths and weaknesses throughout our initial kickoff experiment. My project focused on the effects of valerian, an herbal supplement that acts as a mild sedative, and disrupted circadian rhythms on female fertility. To do this, I gave some fruit flies valerian and wrapped some vials with tinfoil to disrupt the flies' circadian rhythm. Then I tested female fertility using, you guessed it, the female fertility assay! In essence, I transferred the flies into a containment cage attached to a grape plate. Then I let the flies sit in a dark area for 1-2 hours before looking at how many embryos there were in the grape plate under a microscope. Then I waited around 2 days to see how many of the embryos hatched. Ultimately, I found that the use of both valerian and disrupted circadian rhythms resulted in the largest number of embryos formed and the highest hatching percentage; however, the use of valerian and disrupted circadian rhythms separately helped in forming more embryos, but not to the same degree as the use of both. 

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One of the most important aspects of the kickoff experiment to me was understanding what I am good at and what I am not. More specifically, I realized I was inefficient at quantifying objects, like counting embryos on a grape plate. However, I was confident in my abilities to set up viles and follow the directions to have everything ready, before waiting 90 minutes before counting embryos. This helped me realize what was viable when choosing the assays for my final independent project. 

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When determining what I wanted to study for my independent project, I initially wanted to do something related to agriculture. This idea stemmed from the debate of whether organic vegetables were really worth it, which led me to want to research certain fungicides. However, many were too toxic and already thoroughly studied, leaving few gaps in the literature. After that, I landed on sodium nitrite, one of the most prevalent preservatives in the processed meats industry. According to the NIH, “highly processed foods accounted for two-thirds of the calories consumed by youth in the US.” As this number continues to increase, and evidence of the detrimental effects of processed foods mounts, understanding the long-term effects of persistent ingestion of these foods with such preservatives on gut health is necessary. That is why I am choosing the study “How do persistent doses of sodium nitrite affect the gut-microbiome and overall health of Drosophila melanogaster? Do differing dosages result in similar effects in the gut-microbiome?

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