Immortality

              The coolest thing I did this week was probably beginning the process to immortalize a cell line. Yep, you read that right- immortal cells. For those of you not fluent in the ridiculous language of biology, immortalized cells are cells that don’t stop replicating; they keep dividing and dividing and grow unchecked. There’s generally a set of checkpoints and stops that keep your normal, everyday cells from spontaneously becoming immortal, but when you immortalize cells, you keep them under ideal growing conditions until one of them “suffers a psychotic break”, to quote my postdoc, and decides to ignore the checkpoints in favor of replicating indefinitely. It’s a very long, repetitive process. The initial step of setting up the cells to grow probably takes more than two hours, and then you have to incubate them for three days at a time, for an average of twenty cycles before they start to replicate indefinitely. Every three days, they have to be washed with a chemical that will remove them from the plate they’re growing on, and then suspend them in new media, which is basically food for cells.

            Although this might seem like a great anti-aging plan (in the sense that you could just set up your cells to be immortal so you’ll never need to worry about dying), it’s actually very much not a good thing when it happens in your body. Immortalized cells that no longer respond to the system that keeps them from replicating out of control result in tumors. A determining factor of whether something is cancerous is whether the cells are dividing at an abnormal pace. In fact, some of the first immortalized cell lines were developed from cancerous tumors that were being preserved for examination.

            Immortal cells present a whole series of ethical conundrums. The first and most widely known of these can be found in the case of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was treated for cervical cancer in the 1950’s. Without her knowledge, samples of her tumor were taken and preserved for observation. At the time, it wasn’t common practice to ask a patient for permission to keep samples of their cells, probably because technology was not advanced enough that such a practice was seen as necessary. This has caused various legal issues today, as ethics practices have advanced significantly.

            Since you’re probably not reading this for treatises on scientific issues, I’m going to move on and talk about my life. I thought I would mention HeLa cells (cells from derived from Henrietta Lacks’ tumor), because they're are one of the things I find most fascinating about modern science, and they’re bound to come up when discussing immortal cells, so it seemed relevant.

            Anyway, now onto life events. With regard to exciting things, I didn’t do too many this week. On Friday, a friend and I had a movie night- we ate way too much food and watched the 2009 Star Trek, which was an excellent movie, and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it. We ended up staying up really late talking about things, which was good, but lead to me falling asleep rather early the next day. :P On Saturday, my roommate came back to Boston! Which was super exciting... the room was a little lonely for a month. We’re actually going to be roommates for the next year, which should be fun. I also found out this week that we’re going to have six forced triples on our floor, and, as luck would have it, I’m in one of them. So next year I’ll be living with my current roommate and a freshman, unless things change significantly between now and the beginning of the term. It should be an... interesting year, to say the least. But, we’ve decided that we’re going to make the best of it, since that’s really all there is to do. And my cost of living will hopefully be slightly lower, which is always good. :P Anyway, that’s pretty much all of the new things that happened this week... time to go to sleep so I’m ready for the next one!

            Oh, I almost forgot... I went on a run down the Charles River along the Head of the Charles course, and I took some pictures. I also took a few pictures during my walk into Boston to go to the library with some friends on Saturday. Here are some of the ones that I like the best. :D

This is Eliot Bridge, the last bridge on the course.

Here's the Cambridge Boat Club boathouse, which I think is ridiculously pretty.

This is the Harvard Men's (Weld) boathouse.

Here's another bridge (Weeks Bridge, for anyone who's been to Boston)... I mostly just liked the composition of this picture :P

I really like how geometric this building is... I've wanted to take a picture of it pretty much since I first came to Boston.

The Hancock Tower, near the library.

This is the church across from the library... the architecture is gorgeous!

This is the facade of the Boston Public Library's Central Branch... It's very different from Seattle's Central Library (here, for anyone who hasn't seen it)

This is the courtyard, with a fountain IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LIBRARY. So cool. And yes, that's a wedding off on the left. It was adorable. :)

Things I Learned This Week

Here are the things I’ve learned in the past week:

•        It’s mildly complicated running errands and stuff when you’re working 9-5 (especially when the errands involve either banks or the Post Office, since those are usually open from 9-5...) (aka I now have a lot more respect for how my parents managed to get things done when we were little and they drove us everywhere)
•        It’s a good plan to either make sure that you get all the necessary data the first time or save EVERYTHING
•       Project management is super complex (but can be easier if you’re organized)
•        Occasionally things won’t work out how you’re expecting- but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing it wrong.
•        The beach is awesome! (Especially if you’re responsible and manage to cover yourself with sunscreen so you don’t burn in awkward lines down the back of your arm (which I very much failed to do))  

Alright, now explanations...

Re: Running Errands- So Sunday was Father’s Day. (Happy Belated Father’s Day!) In my supreme lack of organization, I put off doing anything until last Monday. This meant that, rather than buying cards/postage when I had time to do so on the weekend, I had to get up early on Monday morning and run to the grocery store to buy cards before work, and then write and send them after work so that they would get to their destinations on time. Luckily, I’m pretty sure they made it to the recipients on time, but it was a bit stressful trying to get to the Post Office before it closed, especially since the one that is right near where I work closes earlier than when I left work that day... so I ended up having to walk an extra mile or so out of my way in order to mail the cards. It was totally worth it, but it kind of made me realize how organized you have to be when you’re working during normal business hours...

Re: Necessary Data/Saving All the Things- When my postdoc was running an experiment last year, she recorded the results, but only genotyped some of the mice she was using, so her results, although accurate, are a bit incomplete. Luckily, she has preserved tissue from the other mice, so we’re going to try to genotype that so that she can get the complete results. Thus, the lesson of today was: either get all the data you could possibly need when doing the tests the first time (even if it seems to be unnecessarily thorough) or (if you have enough space) keep EVERYTHING, so that you can look back through it later.

Re: Project Management- One of the cool things we’re doing right now at pika is that every Sunday after the house meeting, some of us are having a mini-seminar on what goes into project planning/management. The stuff that we’ve learned so far is pretty basic, (how to estimate how much time a project will take, who should be involved in a project, etc.) but even the basic stuff requires a decent level of complexity. That being said, if you can develop a way to keep it all organized, like on a spreadsheet, or via whatever other method you prefer to implement, it can actually be doable. (Fun fact: I almost said manageable there, but decided that was too punny. :P )

Re: Things not working, but doing it right: I finished my first Western Blot test on Thursday, with mixed results. By which I mean pretty much exactly not the results I wanted to see. The Western Blot test is designed to tell you if a protein of interest is present in a given sample. If the protein is present, you should see bands on the membrane that are positioned where you would expect the protein to be. What we saw was no bands. This could have meant two things: either there was no protein present, or the protein we wanted to see was in too low of a concentration to be seen. So, we tested for a different protein on the same membrane, which did show up, and very vibrantly. This meant that the protein we actually cared about probably was present, just in too low of a concentration. So, we went back to the papers (always go back to the papers...) and found that people who had had successful Western Blots for our protein used almost an order of magnitude more than us. Basically, we carried out the test properly, but there are some things we need to do to optimize it. So that’s my task for the next week or two, or however long it takes to figure out whether the protein we want to see is really present in our samples.

Re: The beach- On Saturday, a friend and I took the T (Boston’s subway system) up to Revere Beach, which was about a forty minute ride. That’s probably one of my longest T rides, but it was totally worth it. The weather was perfect for a beach day, and since there’s no school work to worry about during the summer, we had no reason to feel guilty for lying in the sun all day, reading and napping and talking. Which, to be honest, was pretty great. Here, as promised, are some pictures:

Me, slightly hidden behind my friend's bag, because she very nicely included the ocean in the background :)

The beach! So much sand... (this is low tide)

The beach again, with more people. There's also a renegade tent (the colorful thing) which ran me over in its blowing away process. Apparently someone left it, and it decided to blow around the beach...

I was pretty good about putting sunblock on- after 7 hours in the sun, the only place I got burnt was about a 3 inch section on the back of my arms that I apparently couldn't reach... But considering how easily I burn, I'm going to count that as a victory. Also, this seems like an appropriate place to mention my new favorite biology fact: when you burn badly enough to peel, you don't peel because the sun kills a layer of skin. You peel because the sun causes enough DNA damage to the top few layers of skin cells that they can't replicate properly and they undergo apoptosis (programmed cell death) before they can turn into cancer. Your skin cells are basically sacrificing themselves for the greater good of your body, which I think is pretty darn awesome. (Yes, I know, I'm a total nerd...)

And here’s a bonus picture that I took today- double rainbow! This happened right after a thunderstorm, so it was a pretty cool juxtaposition between the destructive power of nature and its beauty. I also really like how the sky looks so much lighter on one side of the rainbow than the other.

Things I Miss, and Things I'm Excited About

As it turns out, I have very little idea what I’m doing with this blog... my life doesn’t seem nearly exciting enough to entertain whoever is taking the time out of their day to read this. Or rather, I find it exciting, but chances are you’re not going to find a detailed description about learning to do a Western blot test particularly interesting. (To be honest, I don’t really find it that interesting either... Western blots are ridiculously finicky and take pretty much forever. There are at least seven pages of instructions on how to perform this one test. The longest protocol I’ve seen previously was about three.) So today, instead of talking about my life, I think I’m going to discuss things I miss from home a bit, and why I’m excited to be here for the summer.

After reading the first post, one of my friends asked if I missed Washington at all. The answer is, of course, that I do! I miss all the people back home who are completely awesome, I miss my puppy (Okay, she’s almost 11, but she’s a puppy at heart), I miss Mom’s cooking, I miss normal weather patterns; In short, I miss a lot of things about Washington. The great thing about Boston though, is that it’s actually a lot like Seattle, so it’s easy to forget about missing the things from home (I still miss the people from home, of course).  There are also a ton of things to do here, so it’s hard to be bored. The rain has put a bit of a damper on exploring in the past week or so, but at some point this summer, I would definitely like to do a bunch of the historic Boston-y things that I’ve somehow been too busy to do in my first two years of college, like walking the freedom trail, and going to see the harbor. Tourist-y stuff. :P

I guess the reason that I’m not always just thinking about home though, is that I’m excited about the things I’m doing here. In high school, my friends and I used to joke about what we were going to do in the world when we were grown ups- mine was always curing some major disease. Granted, I’m just learning lab techniques right now, but a lot of the things I’m doing this summer actually have some potential to help on the path to finding a cure for cancer, or at least understanding cancer better. And that’s incredibly cool, at least in my opinion. What I’m doing may only be one brick in the pathway to curing/understanding cancer, but (to abuse the metaphor) even that one brick will let us walk a little bit further down the path. I’m not trying to brag here... but I’m incredibly excited that I get to help increase the amount of knowledge in the world. So that’s probably what I’m most excited about this summer. :)

My first two years at MIT were challenging on various levels- academically, socially, learning-to-take-care-of-myself-ally. But I hope that I can continue to build on the opportunities that those two years have afforded me. Because right now? Those opportunities are looking pretty awesome.

Summer in Boston: An Introduction

            This is probably the longest time I’ve been away from home... like ever. And my family (and friends from home) are potentially starting to forget what I sound like :P (My fault- I don’t call you guys enough!) In all seriousness though, it’s kind of difficult to keep in touch with everyone, what with school, and now UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program- basically it means that I’m working in one of the labs on campus over the summer, and getting paid for it). As a result, I’m going to try writing about things as a method of sharing- I’m better at wording things when I can read them over anyway. :)

            So, I guess we can consider this update number one! Let’s see... Basic stuff: I’m working in the Samson Lab on campus. Although Professor Samson is the head of the lab, I don’t really see her much- I’m working directly with one of the postdocs employed by the lab. What we’re researching is how chronic inflammation affects cancer development. I’m not sure how much more specific I can be, since I know there’s a paper of some sort in the works, but that covers the basics.

            Over the summer, I’m staying at pika, a cooperative Independent Living Group (ILG, in MIT-speak), which is about a 20 minute walk from campus. It’s been a lot of fun so far- everyone is really nice, and they have awesome ideas; basically everyone is really, really cool. The ‘cooperative’ part means that you have to do some work around the house every week: usually this means either cooking dinner or cleaning up from dinner once a week, as well as cleaning some other part of the house every week. I haven’t cooked so far, since I don’t get home until past 5:30 most days, and dinner is at 7 pm (plus cooking for 40+ people is something of a daunting task...) but I definitely want to try it at some point.

This is pika- I didn't take this picture, but it's a nice shot :)

UROP-wise, I’ve learned a lot so far. Since I have little-to-no background with lab work, I’ve kind of had to build my knowledge up from nothing... which has been something of an adventure in seeing how many things I can do wrong in one week. I’m getting a bit better though (knock on wood) so there’s some hope. :P The things I’ve discovered so far about working in a lab are that doing things is fun, but reading about doing things is significantly less fun. There are an unfathomable amount of papers that have been written about any given research topic- protocols, and analyses of results, and pretty much anything you can think of. Real researchers read A LOT... it’s necessary to see if people have already done what you’re planning to do before you do it so that you don’t end up wasting a lot of time. Papers will also give you a hint about where you might be going wrong, which is something that happens with startling frequency.

As much as time drags on when there are papers to read, it flies by when I’m doing actual lab work. I’m still significantly less efficient at any procedure than any of the grad students or postdocs in my lab, but I’m getting there. The amount of things you have to know in order to do any procedure is incredible! All of the necessary knowledge kind of makes my brain hurt at the end of the day. But it’s a good hurt- learning is a lot more fun when it’s applied rather than theoretical, at least in my opinion.

Since it’s late, and I have to be up early tomorrow morning, I’m going to stop there for now. I’m not sure how often I’m going to post something here, but hopefully it will be fairly often, and there will hopefully be fun things to tell you about and pictures to share. (Yes, Mom, I know I promised you pictures...) Let me know if there are things you're curious about, and I'll try to talk about them!

Until next time,

Alycia