Hey Guys! My name is Ankit and I am going to be telling you all about my experiences doing Asthma Cell Signaling Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Basically, my research is showing how Airway Smooth Muscle contributes to Asthma. Right now, I am researching how Ozone affects Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor 1 and further researcher will try to create a pathway for this activation. I usually leave my dorm around 8:40, as it is about a 20 minute walk to the Translational Research Laboratory. Right now I am working with Joseph Jude, but my lab has several postdoctoral fellows, several PhD students, and a handful of high schoolers and undergrads.
I have spent my first two weeks reading a LOT of papers and also learning techniques such as Western Blot and RNA extraction. I think the biggest lesson I have learned in my first two weeks is how to deal with frustration. A Western Blot is basically a procedure to determine the amount of protein expression. You load samples into a gel and then transfer the gel onto a membrane. You then treat the membrane with antibodies that help illuminate the proteins of interest. You then develop these membranes onto film. However, my membranes wouldn't develop! I even resorted to redoing the Western Blot. Once it finally worked, however, it was very rewarding.
Another thing about research I did not expect was the amount of downtime there is for experiments, especially in biological experiments. However, a lot of labs have multiple areas of research going on. So when I have downtime, I can watch researchers dissect mice or even a human trachea! So far, my research has been very exciting and I am excited for what the next 6 weeks will be like.