Week 1:
University of Iowa Department of Biochemistry

May 28, 2013

Wow. The first week here in the Bowen Science Building (BSB) of the University of Iowa has been a great experience. The people involved, the location, and the material I’m learning about and working on have all exceeded my expectations. I had met with some of the people in the lab before the internship started and got a brief overview of what we were going to be working on this summer.  It’s all about the photoreceptor cell in Dr. Sheila Baker’s lab.  The photoreceptor cells are compartmentalized into 4 distinct areas with the modified cilia outer segment, signal processing and cell metabolic processing inner segment, the DNA containing nucleus, and the synaptic region responsible for sending neurotransmitters to other neural cells.

Dr. Baker is interested in how different proteins are transported selectively into their distinct regions of the photoreceptor cell.  According to the research she has conducted, proteins are automatically directed to the outer segment.  For direction to any other section of the photoreceptor cell, the protein requires a signalling sequence.  I’m working with Yuan Pan, a graduate student, on her project to figure out what part of the C terminus of the HCN1 protein directs the protein to the inner segment of the photoreceptor cell.

Before I learned all of that however, I first walked into the lab where Joe, a friendly research assistant who plays a lot of video games outside of the lab, greeted me and then helped me get registered and trained on how to use various equipment and the safety protocols of the lab.  He then introduced me to the rest of the lab. Sarah, a graduate student working on another project, is very bubbly and talks at rates my brain has trouble processing.  Vasily is a post doc working on another project.  And Modestos is the originally Greek research assistant who is older and gives me advice that I don’t think I will follow.  For example, I was told that when culturing bacteria, I should add in some ethanol to make the colonies happier so they will grow bigger.  If you know anything about culturing bacteria, this advice would seem very suspect to you and would realize that he was kidding.  He has a lot of fun and everyone seems to know him at the coffee shop in the hospital (which is connected by sky walk to the BSB).

These people work together very well and sometimes talk in language that my inexperienced mind interprets as nonsense.  However, after spending my first few days reading and training on the safety protocols and various equipment, I’m starting to understand more of what’s going on.  I started running kits, culturing bacteria, and running gels all relating to the plasmid preparations that are universal laboratory skills in biosciences.  A new experience for me was designing primers on the computer and then getting them two days later.  Better yet, I found that the primers I designed with Yuan’s guidance, actually worked in Phusion PCR amplification of segments of DNA we’ll use to inject into frog embryo’s in the second or third week.

Professor Tepper’s Cell and Molec. class really gave me a solid foundation for biochemical lab work which prepared me for lab procedures to a greater degree than most of the lab members were anticipating.  The major difference I am finding between class and this internship would be the time limits.  Because there isn’t an 18 day limit to this lab process, I can take more time to fully understand what I’m doing and have a much more relaxed lab experience.  This will more than likely change as I am given more and more responsibilities, but this introductory period is very nice.

Another one of the things I wanted to gain from this experience was whether or not I was interested in pursuing a career in research, medicine, or some combination thereof.  I have found that the social atmosphere of this lab to be unbelievably comfortable and have no trouble seeing myself working with people like those who populate the Baker lab.  The work can be tedious, but I think it will be rewarding beyond my current comprehension.

I have to apologize for the lack of pictures, but this first week was very busy and the opportunity for pictures were few.  I’ll be sure to upload many next week to make up for this visually bland post.