5/4/2017: Week 12 – A Different Animal Calls

Hey everyone!

 I only got one day in the lab this week, but I still have new stuff to talk about! 
BACK TO THE LAB AGAIN

 I was traveling yet again, so I missed going to the lab on Monday. From what I heard, all Monday entailed was scrubbing and drying some more amnion and sterilizing a few containers under a UV light. Tuesday was a lot more eventful.

 As soon as I got to the lab, I realized this was the first time all three of the interns would be working together in the new lab, and as if to commemorate the occasion, we had a very special job ahead of us. But before I get into that, here are the pictures of the new lab that I promised in my last post.
Side #1
Side #2
Double Office Action
Pretty sweet, isn't it? Now, the "special task" I mentioned before. Apparently, Dr. Barcelo had some frozen canine stem cells from two years ago, so on Tuesday, we got to work with something that didn't come from a horse! We spent most of the time simply cleaning the cells, and while the procedures were all pretty much the same, it was pretty cool getting to handle a different animal's stem cells. The biggest difference was that the canine stem cells were a lot darker, making the cell solution a forest green. Dr. Barcelo said this is due to differences in anatomy and canine placentas being exposed to more blood, and it was really neat getting to see how these cells looked so different, even though they're essentially the same. 
Super Dark Pellet!
Other than that, nothing too interesting happened in the lab this week. The tests on the cells we're trying to pack did come in, and they weren't exactly what we were hoping for. However, there is still a chance we can pack some product next week, and if we do, I'll definitely be talking about it in my next post!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2/24/2017: Week 3 – Time to Get Technical

Image
Normally, my Week 3 wouldn't be over until ranch duty ends tomorrow, but unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the ranch again this week (due to a piano competition). However, this does mean an earlier post for all my fans who I know are dying to read more. 😛 One quick update on the ranch before I begin: Cheyenne is not yet on yellow alert, but she is close to giving birth. Also, there's a new horse at the ranch now. She's a beautiful white mare named Lansdowne.  Lansdowne Checking Out Her Temporary Home LET THE LAB WORK BEGIN Tuesday: As I mentioned in my previous post, Lil gave birth last week, so we finally had collection material to work with. Although we currently have both amniotic fluid and amnion, we spent this week working only with the amniotic fluid. You might remember this from one of my earlier posts, but amnion/amniotic fluid contains three substances that make it ideal to be processed into a treatment: extracellular matrix, g
Read more

3/3/2017: Complicated Papers x 2

Image
Hey, everyone! I've finished thoroughly reading the papers (on cancer and stem cells) that I mentioned and will be talking about what I've learned in this post. I'll also discuss the SOP's I talked about in previous posts. But, before I start, important updates on the horses! Cheyenne has been raised to orange alert and Lansdowne is on yellow alert. Because horses typically give birth during the night time, I will be going to the ranch later tonight (from 11 P.M. to 2 A.M.) on "barn-watch" duty, monitoring the two horses and being prepared to alert the team if either goes into labor. In my Week 4 post, I'll make sure to talk about this experience, as well as everything else I've done during my fourth week with AniCell.  This post, as the title states, will be about two different types of complicated papers. SCHOLARLY ARTICLES GALORE The first type of complicated paper I'll be discussing is, you guessed it, scholarly articles. As of now, I
Read more

3/20/2017: Week 6 – Building and Crushing

Image
Hey everyone, time for some Week 6 talk! LIFE ON THE RANCH Remember that project we were working on last week? After hours of grueling work this past Saturday, we finally finished. We now officially have one mini horse proof stable!  Beautiful As you can see in the picture, the final product looks quite different from the early stage picture I included last time. One important step we took was to cut the boards we'd painted in half using a table saw. Sawwwww This method let us conserve enough wood to eventually make another stable mini horse proof. This will be necessary since we're getting two mini horses and the one that gives birth first will start getting possessive very quickly. But anyway, pretty much all our time on the ranch this week was spent finishing this up, so that sums up the ranch portion of this post. BACK TO THE LAB AGAIN Working in the lab this week came with a good deal of new and exciting experiences. But before I get to those
Read more