Diving in Head First

Hello, my name is Nandini Sharma and welcome to my blog for the Senior Research Project. I will be working at the University of Arizona Center for Applied NanoBioscinece and Medicine with Dr. Jerome Lacombe. I will be in the lab on Monday, Thursday, and Friday of every week.

Going into my first week of the Senior Research Project I had only the slightest idea of what I would be doing. The only solid facts I knew, or at least thought, were that I was going to have to change my proposal and I was probably going to get very little hands-on time with equipment and the experiment. Alas, as I found out on my first day, the second assumption was absolutely, inexplicably wrong.

On my first day I was like a kid thrown head first into the pool. From the moment I got to the lab I was put to work. First I learned what project, or projects, I would be working on: This is a project studying the effects of radiation on prostate cancer. There are two studies. in the first study,  we will determine the cellular response of three prostate cancer cell lines (PC3, DU145, and 22Rv1) after single or fractionated doses of radiation. The second study focuses on identifying radioresistant biomarkers of prostate cancer. For the second study we will only be using the PC3 cell line. After Dr. Lacombe and I went to the cell culture room. This is the room where the magic happens; at least I like to think so. In this room there is a Biosaftey Cabinet, incubator, fridge, centrifuge, microscope, and all other supplies needed to complete experiments. I won't bore you with the details of what exactly went on, but basically, I learned to use the pipettes (from the micropipettes- 1mL or less to the large ones- 32 mL), change medium of the flasks (remove the liquid that the cells grow in and add a fresh one), and "trypsinize" cells ( moving cells to a new flask so you can continue to culture them). Then I got to complete my first experiment- a micro-BCA Protein Assay. All in all, my first day was far more exciting than I thought it would be.

The rest of the week was just as hands on, but not always as fun. The second day I counted cells for the clonogenic assay. I'm not going to lie this is tedious and, honestly, not that exciting. Since the lab does not have the equipment to automatically count the colonies we have to hand count the cells. This means you sit for hours looking into a microscope marking each colony with 50 or more cells with a sharpie. But if you've ever seen a sharpie under a microscope it's not that bad. The next day, Friday, I was able to analyze the data for the clonogenic assay and the micro-BCA Assay. Unfortunately, we had to throw out the data because the experiments were no longer viable, but it was good practice and an opportunity for me to get acclimated to the work I would be doing in the next few weeks.

All in all, my first week was a whirlwind. I went in having know idea what to expect and came out completely in awe of the awesomeness of the lab and thrilled that I had the opportunity to work there. These next few months were going to be amazing.