Week Eight . . . The End

After eight weeks of living and working in Cambridge, MA, my time here has come to an end. My last few days at Harvard and MIT were quite eventful, so much in fact, that I slept a total of less than 14 hours during my last three nights! But I’ll start at the beginning . . .

On Monday, I spent nearly five hours extruding in the lab. Extrusion, if you remember from my last blog entry, is one method of forming liposomes of a desired size. The method is relatively simple; the solution containing the liposomes is filtered through screens of decreasing size using high pressure. The solution needs to be filtered through the larger filters three times, but through the smaller filters 12 times. So the process takes a long time when there are six filters involved. Also, in between each filtering cycle, the extruder needs to be disassembled and cleaned for any excess solution. I was standing during the whole process, so I was pretty tired by the end of the day.

On Tuesday, there were more presentations from college students in journal club. Topics included the creation of gels held in dialysis tubing for controlled release drug delivery and the development and evaluation of 3D gel constructs for vocal fold tissue engineering. Another student presented a paper on the dispersion of biofilms with engineered enzymatic bacteriophage. I enjoyed the two student research presentations, but had some difficulty with the content of the paper. Back in the lab, I weighed out synthetic lipids and cholesterol for Al and Hila’s future work with the liposomes.

Wednesday was my last day in the lab, and I spent it working alongside Al and Hila, freeze-thawing four different liposome compositions. Three of the samples had the toxic substance saxitoxin (STX) inside of them. STX is a naturally-occurring toxin that is a potent and extremely selective sodium-channel blocker. It is responsible for red tide and the subsequent harsh effects on humans. In fact, ingestion of 0.2 mg of STX is fatal to an average size human, so I was a little wary in handling the substance, even if it was safely enclosed in a plastic test tube. Other than the freeze-thawing, there was little for me to do around the lab, so I spent some time cleaning and saying good-byes before I left.

Meanwhile on campus, it was finals week for everyone. Monday night, I was up until 3:00 studying for my Tuesday exam. After only a few hours of sleep that night, Hila and Al gave me strict instructions to take a half day at the lab and go take a nap before my exam. The exam itself was okay. I was more relieved than anything after it was over, which my whole floor heard about while I danced in the hallway.

Wednesday was the last day on campus for most of my floormates, including myself. To celebrate, we had a gigantic sleepover (involving very little sleep), complete with 15 cartons of strawberries and more food than we could have ever possibly eaten. It was a fun way to spend my last night, even though I was scrambling to finish my packing on Thursday morning before my parents picked me up. The morning concluded with my last breakfast in Annenberg and even more goodbyes in my dorm before the ride home.

All in all, these last eight weeks have been pretty amazing. What I’ve learned most about research is that you can never predict how busy a lab will be and you should always prepare for the worst-case scenario. As for myself, I learned how to survive away from home and challenge myself in a class where it was impossible to know all the answers. Thank you to Mr. Palm, the Science Department at Brooks School, Harvard Summer School, and MIT’s Langer Lab for giving me the opportunity to have such a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I encourage other Brooks students to apply for future summer opportunities.

Have a great school year!