The first week at the Cahill lab at UCI has been great. The lab is located in the Gillespie Neuroscience Research Facility and the space is shared between several labs. My PI will not be around until August so Sarah, her assistant has taken me under her wing. The lab is pretty small and consists of 8 people, but on a usual day there are only 4-5 present depending on their work days and hours.
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| The entrance/lobby of the building |
The first day I learned that the lab had a new protocol and now they are working on a project that will span about 3 years on TBI mice. At first I thought it was something completely different that what I wrote on my proposal but the research I read about provided me with the basic information that I needed to understand this new protocol. I spent all day reading that and got to help Sarah run some CPP tests on the mice that I read about. On the following days I learned and started doing some Western Blot tests and prepared some solutions that the lab needed on a daily basis. I also had to go to a compulsory animal training and vivarium tour before I was allowed to handle and transport the animals. I also talked to Sarah and the plan for the rest of my stay here is to work alongside Sarah and Reem, a volunteer from UCLA, on a project that involves CPP and Von Frey tests on TBI mice. So far I have learned a lot about what my lab is currently doing and everyone I met has been encouraging and kind. Now that I understand the protocol and have a much clearer idea on what we are doing, I''m hoping I get results by the end of my stay.
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| This is what it looks like walking into the lab and my lab's work station is the furthest back |
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