The first day at Sanford Burnham was the day I found out the lab I was placed in, it was Dr. Salvesen’s lab. I was very glad and excited when I received this news because his lab is an Apoptosis lab. This day also included completing HR paperwork, a tour of the facilities, and receiving our access and id cards (id cards could not print at first but by the end of the day the problem was solved). Finally each of the students were left at their respective labs and the first thing Luis and I did, was safety training in the computer. We then did over night stocks and cell cultures for a mini prep the lab manager (Scott) then completed on tuesday.
On the second day, all the interns headed to UCSD for an orientation. Firstly, we heard a talk on group study and journal club. Believe it or not, I actually got good pointers on what to tell my future students how to benefit from group study, because not only do I have my self perspective, but those from fellow students and faculty. Secondly, we went to lunch and then tour the West campus (includes the Medical School and Biomedical Sciences). Lastly, but not least, we heard a talk on goal setting, speaking, and presenting.
On the third day, we had orientation with Dr. Salvesen. We went over the Bridges schedule (UCSD program for accepted and prospective students) and establish we will be attending the first two journal clubs and Dr. Salvesen’s talk. This will allow us to get an idea of how we are suppose to present our Journal club on July 17 in the Bridges program. In addition the dates for the video conference were decided. Afterwards Luis and I met with Dr. Salvesen and Scott to talk about our project. Our project is on NETosis and elastase. We will look at enzyme kinetics and western blots. Then we went to hear a talk by a colleague of Dr. Salvesen’s, Dr. Zhen Jiang on the “Imbalance between neutrophil elastase and its inhibitor alpha1-antitrypsin regulates metabolic function in obesity”. In addition we also stacked an SDS-Page gel and loaded various proteins to be use in the test of a new transfer method.
Thursday involved looking for research articles and reviews on NETosis. Luis and I also attended Dr. Salvesen’s Journal club. This was an interesting experience, because we were not given the paper, thus we did not read it. At first I was clueless but then I was able to understand some of what they were talking about. The good thing is we will be added to the e-mail list. Finally, we went to biosafety for about two in a half hours and then called it a day. On Friday, Luis and I stacked two SDS-Page gels, and made buffers required for the protocol we shadow Scott on the enzyme activity of proteinase 3 and elastase. This was going to be a short project Luis and I were going to work on but since the results are needed ASAP we shadow Scott. For next week we will be loading the proteinase 3 and elastase samples into SDS-Page gels and work on getting the enzyme kinetics.
My first week was a busy week and I am looking forward to the following weeks. I am very excited in completing our project and seeing the outcome of our hard work (Luis and mine).
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