Hi this is Evan Strand and I just finished the last week of my internship working at the Scripps Research Institute with the Dorris Neuroscience Center in the the Ye Lab. It’s been a great experience having the opportunity as a high school student to do research with undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers with their PhDs. Even though Dr. Ye was in charge of the lab, I mostly worked with my mentor, Neeraj, who gave me a lot of guidance, but then trusted me to work independently. I’m thankful for all of his support and grateful to Pinhead for arranging this internship.
What I found out about research is that it involves a variety of experiments that we work on in different intervals. The research at the Ye Lab focuses on studying metabolism with a variety of experiments on mice. During my 6-week internship, I was involved with 3 different experiments in various stages, working on monitoring data with the mice, compiling data, and even preparing new mice for another experiment. This past week I observed one of the graduate students doing “surgery” on a mouse. They first inject a light-sensitive protein into a specific part of the brain, then attach a fiber optic cable. With this cable attached, the lab now gives these mice the nickname “unicorn.” Then when it comes time for the experiment, a tube is attached to the fiber optic cable to send light into the mouse’s brain to activate the protein.
Machine used to attach the fiber optic cable
Mouse with fiber optic cable attached
Mouse with fiber optic cable in experiment
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