Oliver Crane, Post #4, Almost Done : (

With one week left to go I can’t believe that I am already nearly done with my EXP experience. This past week had a lot of work but fun as well. The lab manager, who I had spent most of my time working with, left for her new job. Because of this I’ve had to figure out a lot of my new responsibilities on my own without much guidance. I spent most of the week renaming sections of mouse brains which had been improperly labelled. This task involves comparing the computer images of each section of the brain with the Allen Brain Atlas (basically a map of every section in the average mouse’s brain). Although it becomes quite tedious having to rename hundreds of brain sections which are very thinly sliced, I enjoy the work because of how challenging it is properly matching up each section.

Mouse Brain Slices Pre-Imaging

The lab is currently working on various projects regarding morphine and heroin but I have been put on one which has priority because it has to be published soon. We are basically feeding two different diets to groups of mice, one group gets regular mouse food, while the other gets the same food mixed with crushed up DHA pills. DHA pills are commonly known as fish oil pills which people take for their high concentrations of OMEGA-3. It’s my job to prepare this food mixture by blending the pills with the food and then feeding the different cages of mice. One cool aspect of this job is that I get to work in the animal room which is filled with hundreds of mice and giant white rats with red eyes (biggest rats I’ve ever seen in my life). On Friday, we had a small party during lunch to say goodbye to the lab manager who is leaving. There was a ton of free food and it was a lot of fun. I also made chocolate chip cookies for the party which everyone enjoyed. Outside of work we got to go to Hollywood Avenue and see all the different stars including Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee! It wasn’t that great though because there were a ton of huge crowds of tourists as well as street performers dressed up in strange costumes asking for money. I also have started working on my exp poster for science night on which I am going to talk about the DHA experiment that I am working on. Danny's parents also visited us from nearby Irvine and took us all out to all you can eat Korean bbq! Although we nearly died ingesting as much red meat as possible within the span of a couple of hours, it was great getting out of the house and getting to meet Danny's parents. Looking forward to my last week in Los Angeles despite it being the end of my exp experience!

Danny Kim '17 and his mother, Mrs. Kim.