Week Six . . . Polymers, Buses, and YouTube—Oh My!

With my sixth week in Cambridge now behind me, I’m my time here is quickly ending. This was my last week with Sarah as my post-doctorate, and we spent most of the week finishing up things so that she could get ready for her trip to Canada. We did have a decent amount of lab work, but compared to some past weeks, it was much quieter and more relaxed around the lab.

This week we focused on polymers, a stark contrast to MTT assays. We made a PXC-ADH polymer again, following the same process of maintaining the pH while we added the materials, putting it on dialysis and then freeze-drying it. Later in the week, we dissolved the freeze-dried PXC-ADH along with several other polymers. We tried mixing different combinations of the polymers at different concentrations with a double-barreled syringe to see if any hydrogels formed. This process took most of the week, so I spent time cleaning up the lab bench and reading scientific journals as well.

For this week’s journal club, there were talks on the ‘disassembly of nanodiscs with cholate’ and the production of neural-controlled prosthetic devices for humans with tetraplegia. The first talk was way over my head, but I found the second topic quite interesting, especially the videos we were able to see of the working devices.

On Thursday, I plated mesothelial cells on my own for the first time. Dan Anderson, the head of our group at MIT, asked Sarah to perform a rough experiment on the effects of SBA-15 nanoparticles versus SBA-15 supernatant on mesothelial cells. Since Sarah won’t be around to finish the experiment next week, I was responsible for adding the substances to the cells on Friday and I will perform an MTT assay on them to determine what happened to the cells in the different environments.

In class this week, we discussed the human immune system: how it reacts to HIV infection and how HIV turns the immune system against itself during progression to AIDS. It was some of the hardest biology we’ve discussed so far; I even had to pull out my AP Biology book to review basic immune responses so that I could understand some of the more advanced concepts.

Friday night, Jon and I had our first adventure on the bus system in Cambridge, venturing to Mr. and Mrs. McCahill’s new home for dinner. We spent a few hours with them before heading back to campus. I was also home for part of the weekend, spending some time with friends and working on one of my community service projects for this school year.

Sunday night I received an urgent text message from a fellow Brooksian instructing me to return to campus in time for the Secondary School Talent Show at Harvard. So after gathering all my stuff in less than ten minutes and suddenly informing my parents that I had to go back to campus two hours earlier than anticipated, I was there to see five old and new friends perform—to a Backstreet Boys song. It was hilarious; they’ve now become campus celebrities and videos of their performance can already be found on YouTube. My weekend ended with an 11:30 pm ice cream run with a few friends who we convinced to stop by Harvard Square on their way home from Boston.

Next week I’m going to be working with Hila, a post-doc, and Al, a student at MIT. I’ll be shadowing the two of them and their work with liposomes in addition to completing Sarah’s experiment. I’ll be seeing a multitude of different things in the lab, so it will be a change from my current routine.

Enjoy your week!