LSC Montgomery – Biotechnology Interns

This was the last week of the internship and I’m so grateful for it all. Working in the lab with my mentor was such a great experience and I’m so happy I was able to see the behind the scenes of research.

My Biotech Bestie

I was so nervous in preparing for the poster presentation. I hadn’t realized that I was spending so much time with the articles, getting my hands dirty in lab, and actually analyzing data, that all of the information came so naturally to me. I knew my presentation had gone well but I was not expecting to get an award, but I’m beyond happy with my achievement.

Thank you Dr. Zafar, you have been an amazing leader. I hope everyone has an amazing journey to whatever comes next, whether it be in your education or just in life.

This week we had to quickly run experiments for CaSO4 so that we could compare our results to CaCO3 and have a conclusion to complete the abstract and the poster presentation. Time was ticking and it felt like we weren’t going to make it. We pulled through, but it was super rushed. I wish we would have figured out all the kinks a couple of weeks ago that way we could have ran more experiments. My mentor said that this is an ongoing experiment and not to worry too much about not having a solid conclusion, because research is a never-ending cycle and this way the work that I have been a part of will pave the way for the next researcher.

I’ve been in this building a few times and I just noticed that there is a telephone booth!
The last time I remember seeing one being used was by my mom when I was a kid and it brought on a good feeling.
It doesn’t take quarters, and it’s a digital one but it’s still pretty nice to see!

This week we had time to go over our results from our experiments with CaCO3 and realized that we needed to change the solution since our membrane was deteriorating too quickly. My mentor decided to remove NaCl from our feed solution because he believed that it may be too corrosive for the sensitive membrane. So instead of running experiments on CaSO4 this week, we ran CaCO3 one more time. As it turns out his intuition was 100% right. Not only did this save our membrane, but it also gave a sense of security that the results that we are observing are truly a result of the specific salt we are reporting on. We will be trying CaSO4 next week so that we can have solid evidence for our research and hopefully we can document our findings by the time the presentation is around.

I took a different route to get to campus and this building really caught my attention.
Details are 10/10.

This week has been a struggle to say the least. I hope everyone gets electricity sooner than I will.

Personally, the aftermath of the storm has given me the time to reflect on what I take for granted and the realization that it’s time to invest in a generator. 😅

In other news, a  lost pup came to my house after the storm and he was reunited with his family!

In the lab, my mentor will be running tests using CaSO4 over the weekend to compare to our tests with CaCO3.

Week 6 done already?? Not sure if it was the holiday 🇺🇸🇺🇸 but it felt like this week flew by incredibly quick.

Since my lab takes place mainly on the weekends it always feels like it takes so long to see results, but luckily things have been coming together. I’ve always liked numbers so data analysis is great, but I do miss going to campus and interacting with my mentor and other graduate students working in the lab.

Here’s a photo of a turtle I saw in my driveway.

This week has been one of trying to take it easy while adjusting. I had my baby (a few weeks earlier than expected) so I moved over to the virtual part of my internship. Life as a mom of a toddler and a newborn is very different from just the life of a mom of a toddler, and it’s great to see my little girl become a big sister.

My mentor and I had already set up a plan for when I moved over to virtual so, luckily, doing it early was not very difficult to make the transition smooth. As far as what’s going on with the research, at this time I am doing some readings on what will be incorporated into the “Abstract” portion of the poster presentation. Meanwhile, in the lab, my mentor is running the same experiments we were running before and will be sending me data as it comes in. Data analysis is critical to our lab, so we have some big steps coming up.

This week we ran our samples from our experiments over the past few weeks through the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The SEM is located in the basement floor of the Brockman Hall for physics were we have been having the past few OURI meetings.

An interesting aspect of the room where the microscope is kept is that the walls are covered in Acoustic Foam (like a recording studio); the reason behind this is because the microscope is so sensitive that vibrations and acoustic noises can cause disturbances in its performance, so noise attenuation is critical for accurate imaging.

We looked at different samples that had differences in mass of salts in their original solutions. Unfortunately, we saw just one salt crystal in just one of six samples. It felt like a let down at the moment, but that’s the whole point of this research – we are looking for multiple aspects of what makes (or breaks) our module.

Although we did not get results we were hoping for, I did get to play around with the microscope and took some pretty groovy pictures. These are not salt crystals, but they are artifacts in our samples that could be due to other contaminants in the water.

I particularly liked this picture because of the ~perfectly~ round ball in the center.

Next week, I start the ‘virtual’ part of my internship, so I am preparing myself for data analysis and acquiring as much information as I can to start the poster.

The sun hasn’t been beating down this week and we’ve had a good breeze going, so it’s been very nice to walk around campus.

Here’s our setup:

There’s a method to the madness.

After running our experiments, we prepped some samples for analysis. My mentor and I went to a communal lab! I was able to see and run a new-to-me piece of equipment – A Sputter Coater. Essentially it looked like a Coffee machine from the future.

A sputter coater is used to apply a thin layer of metal (we used actual gold) to prepare a sample for electron microscopy. My mentor mentioned that an instrument similar to this is used in the jewelry industry which is how we get “gold plated” accessories. Unfortunately the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) was booked this week, so we will be running our prepped samples during the weekend. We will be looking at the volume of salt crystals and their structures.

P.S. If anyone is looking for some good eats on Campus:

I recommend to try the Dandelion Café in the O’Connor Building for Engineering.

Hello!

It’s been such a beautiful week after all that rain!

We had to modify our project once more, and now we are looking at more specific aspects of a part of the bigger picture. My mentor has been working with the PI to adjust the experimental design. This week has been living proof of what we talked about in our first REU meeting – sometimes the path isn’t as clear as moving from Point A to Point B and that’s just a part of research. I’ve had to read alot of papers since the beginning of the START program, so now I’m happy to say that we’re able to get off the computer and into the lab to get our gloves dirty!

My favorite path to avoid the heat:

I like to pretend like I am attending Hogwarts. #SlytherinHouse

This week we had orientation! We had a lot of useful information come to us and we got to have lunch in one of the cafeterias on campus.

After the orientation activities, I walked around campus with Cindy wanting to find a way to use the bus route and we struggled… a little more than I’d like to admit.

We got hit with some heavy rain… again. There were some labs that lost power so they were running on emergency energy. Also, my summer project changed again, so my mentor and I had to brainstorm how to calibrate our instruments for them to be at optimal use.

I am very excited to continue to work through the rest of the summer.