Nicole Trovato, Entry #2, Getting to Work

Now that the first week at my lab has ended, I have officially begun working on my project and have obtained a better understanding of life in the lab because of it.

My workspace 

I have a desk and computer to use while I wait for some of the experimental processes to take effect, and usually take this time to copy down the steps to the experiments in my lab notebook. My pi told me on my first day how writing down every single detail is very important when conducting experiments, so I have been doing my best to keep meticulous notes. 

A collection of the solutions I have used

Washing the slides!

I mostly have been working with human and mouse lungs, each in their early stages of development. I have been working with various chemicals to wash my slides and prepare them for florescent staining. 

I have also gone through the steps to block my slides and stain them with the primary antibodies. The postdoc here, Soula, has been incredibly helpful through this process, and has been aiding me, along with a post graduate student, Emma, in developing the skills needed to complete our experiments.