This week was all about growth and planning. Now that I’m past the adjustment phase, I’ve started working on more complex tasks, and with that came some challenges. For me, it’s been the most rewarding week yet.
I spent much of this week focused on cell cultures, project planning, and research. I had fewer coding projects this week and got to spend most of my time in the wet lab. Additionally, this week, I had a meeting with my professor and mentor to talk about a new experiment we could start working on. It is a computational project that has been tried before in the lab to sort, identify, and describe senescent cells. However, the model could not precisely identify tissue culture. Making this machine learning model will take many new skills and approaches that the lab has not used previously, so I’m very excited to be a part of its building team.
Another highlight was sitting in on a lab meeting, where I got to hear more about the broader implications of the lab’s work. It was a reminder of how what we do on the bench or at the computer contributes to real scientific questions. I also had an idea for a research method that has never been explored, so my mentor is giving me the chance to write a mock research proposal to present.
My Lab work this week was extensive and included things like thawing new cell cultures to run experiments on, feeding and cleaning cells, staining, and imaging cell cultures and tissue. We took the cell cultures from a freezer with a temperature of -200 degrees Celsius and gradually introduced them to a medium to make the cells metabolically active again while avoiding damage to the cells. Additionally, most of the tabletop work in the lab I have been able to do unsupervised, and I even stained the nucleus of my first tissue this week.
Most of my work and research this week has been extensive, so I’ve had less time to go out and explore. I did some yoga, volleyball, and pilates again this week, but I went into the lab on the weekend this week, so I did not go out to see new places.
Looking ahead, I want to keep building my confidence with wet lab procedures. I can already feel the difference in how I approach tasks now compared to my first week, and I’m excited to keep that momentum going.
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