And The #1 Most Important Technique in Scientific Research is......

Labeling!!!!!!

Seriously, if you are considering doing your own scientific research for the first time, get in the habit of labeling everything! Label things clearly with as much detail as possible. Even if you are simply putting 20-mL of distilled water into a 50-mL tube, you should still label it because you may forget what you put in there when you come back from eating a bologna sandwich. Also someone else might need to know what it is and to whom it belongs. You want to make sure that your results are as accurate as possible by minimizing procedural errors. The easiest way to do this is to become an expert "labeler."

Another simple, but equally important tool for effective scientific research is reading! Read as much as you can about the work you are doing or are planning to do. Reading scientific papers is challenging, but the more papers you read and the more times you read each paper the easier it gets. Sometimes it can be rather difficult to make yourself read at night after a long day at work (something that I have experienced). However, what background reading can do for you is grant you an understanding of what you are researching. That way it means something to you when you find out that CD8+ T cell expansion occurred after lymphocytes from a particular transgenic mouse were injected into a nude mouse. Otherwise, you are just a robot. Otherwise, you are just following a protocol. Reading allows the research experience to be not just educational, but also meaningful and more enjoyable.

Stay tuned for a future post describing the art that is perfusion...

Living the L.A. Life

I went to Santa Monica today. I hung out on the pier for a little while, which is equipped with its own roller coaster, Ferris wheel, and food court, and then I went on the beach to read, listen to music, and admire the Pacific Ocean. I had a lot of fun, and luckily I did not get too sunburned! When I got back to my apartment, I walked down to San Vincente and got some supper at a small cafe in downtown Brentwood. Last weekend, I found a neat outdoor mall just outside of Beverly Hills with the nicest movie theater ever. This was a big deal to me because I am a huge movie buff (something that I have inherited from my father) and so I plan to spend a lot of time there this summer. It had three stories and had assigned seating! I saw Prince of Persia. It was great! I am not a shopper, but if I were it would be easy for me to do so since I drive right past Rodeo Drive on my way to work each day.



There is never a shortage of things to do in L.A. However, in addition to working full-time during the week and having fun on the weekends, I have to find time to cook, clean, wash clothes, iron, go to the grocery store, exercise, and study. It is a little different from being at Wofford where my meals are made for me each day and I can get my clothes washed every time I go home to visit. I like it though. I am truly living in the "real world," and it is great practice for the future.

One thing that I really like about L.A. is the interesting and eclectic group of people that I interact with on a daily basis. At the lab I am working in I get the opportunity to work closely with people of many different races and backgrounds. Each person has his/her own ideas, beliefs, and languages. I have enjoyed getting to know my labmates and many other people at Cedars-Sinai. L.A. is really teaching me that we truly do live in an internationally oriented world, and that advances in science, economics, and politics are made much easier when all people work together in a spirit of cooperation and brotherhood.

Even though I am a Woodruff boy and I am used to the slower pace of Spartanburg, South Carolina, I really love L.A. Sure it is busy, crowded, and crazy at times, but it is also beautiful, fun, and an exciting place to live and work. Oh and by the way...GO LAKERS!!!!!!!!!! NBA CHAMPS!!!!!!!!!!

Go with the Flow

During the past week I have been learning about an extremely important experimental procedure called flow cytometry. Flow cytometry has many uses in the lab. With flow cytometry you can discover the size, complexity, and phenotype of an individual population of cells in a heterogeneous mixture. The diagram below shows the main parts of a flow cytometer. Basically, cells are passed through a laser beam one at a time and optics catch the light that is scattered by the cells and direct it toward the detectors. The detectors then translate the light intensity to a voltage pulse and send this signal to the computer system where analysis can be performed.
A really cool thing that a researcher can do with flow cytometry is determine the surface molecules or antigens that are present on a particular cell type. This is done by collecting a cell sample and then labeling the cells with fluorophore-labeled antibodies. You can add many antibodies (all of different colors) to look for several molecules at the same time. You can also do intracellular staining if you are looking for a particular molecule that may be found inside the cell as opposed to on its surface. Intracellular staining requires the use of a Golgi plug because you must make sure that proteins, especially proteins that you are looking for, are not shipped out of the cell by anterograde transport once you create pores in the cellular membrane to allow the fluorophores inside. Once the cells have been labeled, they can be passed through the laser. The laser will excite the fluorophore to a higher energy level, the fluorophore will then return to its regular energy level causing a certain color light to be emitted, and this fluorescence will be detected by the flow cytometer. Subsequent analysis of the fluorescence intensities allows researchers to know what antigens and surface/intracellular molecules are present in a cell. This is clinically relevant because if you know what surface molecules are on a cell, you can gain insight into biological pathways or intercellular interactions of which the cells may be a part. This information can then be used to create treatments that could upregulate positive pathways or downregulate harmful pathways. As you can see, flow cytometry is extremely essential and exciting stuff. So don't forget...go with the flow.


The pictures in this post came from the website listed below. If you are interested in learning more about flow cytometry I would highly recommend this website! Más pronto...

http://www.invitrogen.com/site/us/en/home/support/Tutorials.html

Liberty Enlightening the World

If you are at all confused by the title of this post, don't be. "Liberty Enlightening the World" is simply the actual name of the Statue of Liberty given to it by its sculptor, Frederic Bartholdi. As you can tell by my short history lesson, I had fun seeing and learning about the Statue of Liberty. However, I did a lot more during my weekend in New York City besides visiting Lady Liberty. I was enamored by Picasso's works on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, I was entertained by the Broadway performances of The Phantom of the Opera and Fences, I was amazed as I looked out over Manhattan from the top of the Empire State Building, and I was thrilled to spend some quality time with my parents. Needless to say, I had a great vacation in New York City! Of course the coolest thing about New York was the 2010 Pauletta and Denzel Washington Family Gifted Scholar in Neurosciences Award ceremony. The ceremony was held at Harlem Village Academy, an excellent public charter school in Harlem, in order to inspire the students to consider science and medicine as a potential career and to encourage them to apply to this program in the future. Before the ceremony I had the opportunity to meet many interesting people including Dr. Black and Mr. and Mrs. Washington! Mr. and Mrs. Washington are two of the most generous, humble, kind, and down to earth people you could ever meet. I had a lot of fun talking to them and taking pictures with them. I am so blessed to have met Pauletta and Denzel Washington, and I will be forever grateful for their investment in my future (Oh and Denzel said he really liked my Wofford tie!!!). As you can see, I had the weekend of a lifetime! Currently, I am back in L.A. where I am continuing to learn new research techniques. More soon...

First Week At Cedars-Sinai

My first day at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was this Tuesday. I went through the hospital orientation, had several meetings, and became familiar with the Cedars-Sinai campus. I will be working in the Barbara and Marvin Davis Building (the tall building pictured above), also referred to as the Burns and Allen Research Institute. I will be in Dr. Christopher Wheeler's Dendritic Cell Vaccination lab which is a part of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institue. Dendritic cell vaccine is made by pulsing a patient's dendritic cells (cells that elicit an immune response) with tumor lysate. This causes the patient's body to combat the tumor more effectively. My research focus for the summer has not been finalized, but it may involve testing to see which cell killing pathways (perforin or rapid response) chemotherapy and endogenous anti-tumor T-cell activity affect, and how that influences tumor growth. This research will involve cell culture, flow cytometry, brain surgery on mice, and more. I am so excited to get started on my research because it is fascinating material and it is clinically relevant. In addition to working in the lab, I will have the opportunity to shadow Dr. Black and other neurosurgeons at Cedars-Sinai! How cool is that?? I already sat in on the Tumor Board this Wednesday, and it was very interesting. First, however, I am flying to New York City tonight to attend the awards ceremony where I will be presented the award by Pauletta and Denzel Washington. I know that I am going to have an awesome time in New York this weekend and in L.A. this summer. I will make a new post about my NYC experience when I return to L.A.!