Tissue Morphodynamics Lab: Weeks 9-10

Hello, this Danny from Dr. Nelson's Lab in Princeton, and its been quite a while since my last post. I been done for about a week now and I've just finished up organizing my data and images. The last two weeks at the lab were exciting and busy, as many of the graduate students and post-docs were preparing posters and presentations. Although Amira and Sriram seemed busy with experiments throughout the week, they still both made time to continue helping me with my research. 

During the ninth week, I was mainly focused on dissecting day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7 chicken lungs in order to create a morphology chart for my upcoming poster presentation. Ideally, I wanted to get the dissection done in the late morning, but if the microscopes were taken, I usually resorted to tracking cells on Imaris. On Imaris, I needed to track squares with higher densities and more cellular divisions per 12 hours, because Sriram and Dr. Gleghorn wanted to see if the cells illustrated similar rotational patterns to previous research done on rotational axes. There were on average 20 to 30 more divisions per data set in the higher density than the normal density data sets. After I finished cell tracking, the data was then analyzed through MatLab and saved. We also tracked cells in a worm structure, rather than in a square structure to see how different structural shape would affect the division of cells. The results were similar to the square, as the cells divided parallel to the edges of the structure.

The last week at the lab, there was a research symposium similar to the one EXP went in the Fall, that highlighted Physics in Living Systems. Although I only listened in on one day out of the four day conference, the research other universities were doing were astonishing. During the last week I continued culturing lungs in tissue culture, and observed the mechanical effects of Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and Transforming Growth Factor Beta 1 (TGFβ1) over the course of three days. I also learned 2D patterning from Sriram, who was really helpful throughout the process. I stamped 2 gels onto coverslips, and luckily one of the two came out alright. It was a great experience but it was definitely a lot harder than I could of imagined. The last week was essentially dedicated to compiling all my images and finalizing my research. I had a great time at the laboratory and really thank everyone at the lab for making me feel welcome.