Welcome back! by Vedha Viddam

​​Hello again! TRIP has been a lot of fun and I am looking forward to more! I finally know everyone’s name (I’m usually horrible at remembering names), and, for once, I actually know what I’m doing. My favorite part so far is being able to work independently and learn from my mistakes, because it will not exactly put anyone in danger, except maybe a few escaped flies.

Microbiome Assay!

So far we learned how to make fly food and did our own mini-experiment. I tested the effect of Red Clover and the high temperature of female fertility. It was a lot of fun until I came in the next week and found most of my flies dead in the food. I had accidentally flicked the flies too hard while transferring them from one vial into another. Oops! Even with fewer flies, I was able to finish the experiment. With those results, we presented our final results to the others and got feedback on our presenting skills.

We started brainstorming for our own independent projects. I really want to do something with antibiotics because of my interest in Immunology. I want to test the effect of certain antibiotics on female fertility and the diversity of the microbiome.  The female fertility measures the number of progeny over a given period of time, in this case, the number of embryos. This is because the use of antibiotics has increased over the years, and I would like to see how these drugs will affect future generations. My prediction is that both antibiotics will decrease the number of embryos per female for the flies.