Week 4:
Baylor College of Medicine

June 22, 2014

June 16th seminar: Signal transduction of G-protein
I learned the overview of G-protein in the seminar. I wondered if there is any circumstance that an alpha unit cannot form the protein complex with the other two units. One question was raised about the intensity and location of the input and how it would affect the downstream pathway. I recalled the knowledge I have learned from Bio-psychology class at Cornell: temporal summation (inputs at one location) and spatial summation (multiple input at different locations) input on neuron, which will induce different pathways in signal transduction.

June 18th, 2014
Luckily that it was not a very busy day because Rose only transferred a few blots. Hanh, Dan, Rose, Rodrigo, and I went down to the animal facility to set up 10 cages for the 20 pigs. We brought the A frames, the blankets, the milk bags, and toys for them. I failed in attaching the A frame with the cage because I did not zip them tightly enough so Dan had to redo them all. Fortunately I was only doing 3 cages and I found some zipper so that we didn’t have to go up stair again.

I finished making two more sets of blood and one set for plasma labels for phenylalanine at 5, 15, and 30 min and for Progressive Respiratory and Reproductive Syndrome ( Day 0 and Day 8), respectively. I took me awhile to label all the tubes.

Highlight of the day:
I met a Cornell alum, S.K. We talked for 40 min and he gave me a lot of about choosing a graduate school. He asked me the essential question: “Why are you interested in neuroscience or neurology, specifically Huda’s lab?” I could not answer it. And I think he knew I could not answer it right now. I need to figure it out by having more research experience, immersing myself in different laboratory settings, literatures, and technology. He also asked me to distinguish between neurology and neuroscience. S.K. said that if I am truly interested in neurology/ neuroscience, think careful what system I want to work with, it is an emotional thing to each individual. Ask myself if I can chop off a pigeon head, a mouse head to do my experiment.

He also talked about “the match” between me and the school. Do you feel like you can assemble with the people here? Do I feel that I love the collaboration, the translational side of research that BCM can offer? Do I want the environment in which I do not need to know everything, I just need a great idea, and then ask for help at BCM? He explained to me why he liked BCM. It gives graduate student flexibility to change among different departments. He was initially in Cell and Molecular Bio but he ended up in Neuroscience Dept. He loves his lab and PI. What can he ask for more?

June 19, 2014
Seminar: Ion channels
Dr. Horrigan went over the different types of ion channels. One of the interesting fact is that virus have ion channels too! I wonder if research has found any ion channels in viruses which also can act as transceptor? I asked and he said they have not found anything thing like that because this is a fairly new research area.

One of the students wondered if the structure of transmembrane ion channel could be β sheet. Dr. Horrigan explained that most of ion channels are α helix because it needs to shield the hydrophilic parts inside and show the hydrophobic part outside as the liquid layer surrounds the transporter. This was exactly what I learned in Prof. Tepper’s class!

I arrived at 8:00am at the lab and left at 8:30pm today. At the end of the day, I felt drained off but I still had a huge smile on the way back home because I have learned a lot today.

June 20th, 2014
Rodrigo bought two buckets of ice cream, Oreo cookies, and honey peanuts to the meeting. I was so happy because of the ice cream!!!! I could not eat right away because it was the morning and I just had breakfast. But I ate it when I stayed late in the afternoon. Before lunch, Rodrigo, Hanh, and Rose weighted the diets for the piglets.

Friday night was long. I thought I finished work earlier than usual because I just needed to develop some samples for Rose. But PKP-T, wells 1-30 did not show anything after 15 minutes of exposing! The others were working perfectly. After I finished around 4:30, I wanted to finish editing the schedule for next week and also Body Weight forms, BrdU forms…etc.

June 21, 2014
My volunteering shift at TCH was much better today! I got to assist approximately 20 kids and their family to their room. I encountered a situation in which I was escorting one patient to the room when an Indian father asked me if I could help him to get his daughter in the ER quicker because her oxygen intake was falling. The other patient was looking at me very impatiently, which I understood because her family has been waiting for almost three hours to get the ER room. So I gave the most detailed direction to the nurse to the Indian mother to get help, and took the other patient to the room as quick as I can. After I took the patient to the room, I ran as quickly as I could to the Indian family. I was relieved to find out that the mother was able to find the nurse and the little girl was being taken care of. I ended up taking the Indian family to their room too. It felt good after the volunteering time.

After volunteering, I went to the Houston Symphony in Herman Park with another two girls from the SMART program, Euna and Anvita. It was the greatest symphony I have ever been to.

I was curious of how the music would sound in an open theater. It was absolutely beautiful. The pianist was sensational. The conductor was humorous. What I liked about the conductor was the way he dressed. He dressed just like others who played in the orchestra. He did not distinguish himself but he blended it. I thought that was a meaningful act of acknowledging that the symphony was everyone’s effort.

After the concert, we walked to Rice Village to get ice cream from Cloud 8. It was the best ice cream ever. Macha Cake sundae was what I got. On the way back, as it was getting late and the street was not crowded, we decided to turn on music and sang along. It was a fun night with a lot of walking.