Week 12 – Time Flies

The past 12 weeks have been exciting, challenging, eventful, memorable and more than I could have ever asked for. I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to work in a lab that is at the forefront of vascular injury and remodeling research. I have met some of the most talented, knowledgable, and caring individuals …

Week 11 – A New Drug and Freezer

11 weeks flew by and I am sad I have to leave the lab next week 😦 On the bright side, a new drug arrived this week!! The lab has been waiting for this drug for months and now everyone is going to be busy. I was the first to run an experiment with the …

Week 9/10 – Scratching the Surface (literally and figuratively)

Over the past two weeks I have definitely felt everything slow down, contrary to what last week's blog post title would imply haha. The end is very near and I am not rushing to discover something entirely original with my research. That is not to say there is nothing more to accomplish in the coming …

Week 8 – Much More to Come

As I promised last week, I am going to share the cytotoxicity assay results in this week's post. Before I do that I want to share what I have been working on this week. This week I started a new assay comparing drug 19-26 to RvD1 and Imatinib (a drug I talked about in last …

Week 7 – Growth Curves and a New Drug

Today was Day 11 of the growth assay and the day I analyzed the results of the cytotoxicity assay. I am going to share the growth assay results in this post and the cytotoxicity results in next week's post. To recap, last week and this week I was comparing different percent serums on the growth …

Week 6 – Taking a Step Back

This week, I decided to step back and conduct a foundational experiment that will reveal more about the nature of vascular smooth muscle cells. My external advisor suggested that I create a base line with a growth assay. The end result of this assay will be multiple growth curves of smooth muscle cells' response to …

Week 5 – Results and Restarting

I completed the proliferation assay with RvD1 resolvin this week and have finished analyzing the results! Before I share the results, I thought it might be fun to share what this week in the lab looked like and some of the road bumps I encountered: On Monday (Day 7 of the assay), I looked at …

Week 4 – Resolvins May Be the Solution

This week I started the proliferation assay for vascular smooth muscle cells. Using Alamarblue and a fluorescence spectrophotometer I counted the initial number of cells in all my wells. I explained how this assay works in more detail in last week's post. Here are the steps I followed this week: Alamarblue Proliferation Assay Protocol My …

Week 2/3 – Learning Cell Culturing

This week was my first full week in the lab and I have learned an immense amount about cell culture and the vascular biology of our arteries. I also followed some really awesome experiments conducted by researchers in the lab that I will share more about next week! In order to determine which drug (paclitaxel, …

Week 1- Meet the Conte Lab

I am excited to begin working in the lab next week! I spent this week completing safety training modules, signing paperwork, and researching what is currently happening in the lab. My external advisor is confident that I will get good exposure to bench and translational cardiovascular science and a smattering of clinical science as well. …