My Internship 

My team is currently conducting multiple studies on how different drugs affect the bone properties of either mice or rats. What I am currently doing is scanning the bones of mice that either had no kidney disease or had kidney disease that were treated with different types of drug treatments. The software analyzed properties such as the cortical porosity percentage or volume of the trabecular bone. After doing statistical analysis of the data, the treatment effectiveness can be determined. People should care about this research since thousands of people of affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD) and not much is known about how CKD increases the chance of bone fractures. Not only does CKD affect bone turnover rate negatively, opioids might also impact the bone turnover rate negatively as well. For the past couple of months, I have been gathering data to see if this hypothesis is correct. This matters since most patients with CKD only option is opioids for managing their pain. This type of treatment may lead to even high fracture rates that are already seen with CKD patients.  

Learning and Skills 

My course work has fit well within my lab research. In my biomaterial's class, bone formation and absorption were talked about for the use of bone scaffolding to repair bones. My lab has talked to me about the idea of how osteoclasts and osteoblasts and how it causes the increase or decrease of bone growth which has helped me understand my coursework better. With already having knowledge of the factors of bone formation and absorption from my research lab, I was able to have a deeper understanding of bone cells can grow on a scaffolding. Recently, we have been using mechanical testers to see things like the ultimate force. This involves working with MATLAB which is something I can use for Biomedical Engineering. 

The places where I have grown from working in this research lab is understanding the basic principle of research and understanding the types of skills and passions one must have to pursue this kind of research.  My favorite experiences so far are from talking with my co workers about the cell biology concepts behind the studies or other unrelated work topics.

The contributions that I have made in this lab have impacted multiple goals. I have been working on getting bone formation rates which involves preparing bones to be cut into thin slices which are then placed onto slides. After performing immunohistology on the slides, bone formation rate as well as other data can be collected. This information will be used for the next studies that involve opioids with CKD rats/mice. These efforts mattered since they taught me how to perform multiple tasks relating to bone analysis.  

The skills that I have used so far in LHSI has been mostly communication and problem solving which are skills I will use for the rest of my career. Some things I still can do in the remaining months of LHSI is being able to perform more tasks without needing help or asking for assistance. I would still like to be more independent. Even if I am not completely independent, this program has helped me build these skills of communication and problem solving since I was given tasks there were challenging at times. 

The Workplace

Throughout the past month of working in my lab, there are behaviors and actions I want to transfer to later in my career. Everyone one in my lab is very friendly and open to any type of conversation. I am not afraid to ask any questions which makes me more productive since I can move through tasks more often. I am not stressed out when I work since the environment is not hostile. I will want to use these behaviors later on in my career since I know it makes me a better teammate and worker. 

Learning from my co workers

What I have learned so far from my co workers are topics revolving around education. Since, I am an undergraduate student and my co workers both have their PH.D, I can learn about what that title means and how to earn it. I can ask questions like "do you think it was worth it" or "how hard was it" to better understand what I want to do with my future. 

My internship experience has been different than what was expected since I came in believing it would be stressful considering I am a fulltime student, but in reality, my lab is very lenient about my schedule. For example, if I have a project and test during the week, I can either not come in during the week or work around it. 

My attitudes and beliefs have made working in my lab easier since we all of us like to joke around with each other. It would not have worked out as well if I took everything seriously. I also enjoyed talking about things that were not related to the work with my co workers which made working in the lab more fun. I think I grew as a professional a little bit since I improved my communication with doctors however, I feel like there is more room to improve

Ideal Work Place

The difference between the current work environment to my ideal workplace environment is almost virtually the same. I really enjoy working here since it is more laid back and less stressful. Everyone in the lab respects me and understands that I am a student who is part of more things besides this lab. I never have any thoughts of not wanting to go to work, but rather I look forward to the break from the other activities I am doing in school.  

The new success I can add is being able to perform histology/morphology on bones to see how much bone growth occurred within a couple of weeks. This tool allows me to further expand my skill set in bone analysis which will help me later on in my career. 

Successes and Challenges 

The times I have been successful during this internship are being able to scan bones with a CT scanner, and process those files through multiple programs without any assistance.  Another successful time I had was figuring out short cuts within these programs to speed up the process of analyzing the bones. 

The most challenging aspect of this lab is remembering all of the details of each study which is difficult since there are several studies going on. The things that help me with this challenge are dry-erase boards that briefly explain each study and what is going on each day. I have partially conquered this challenge since the project I have been working on for the past couple of months, I know a lot of information about it and do not need to ask any questions about it.

 My co workers have helped me a lot throughout these 2 semesters. They constantly tell me what they working on and the overall big picture. They also help with LHSI related things which is very nice of them.  

What I have learned through these successes and challenges is that no matter what the outcome of these events are, I still attempt to look at the bright side and realize how far I have grown as a research assistant. 

Project Summary

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have high rates of pain and limited options for pain management, leaving chronic opioids as a primary pain treatment; however, opioids lead to higher fracture rates. The majority of patients with CKD have chronic pain which significantly reduces the quality of life. Due to poor kidney function, most pain management pain treatments are not possible for this population. CKD alone leads to ample amounts of bone loss and high fracture rates.  Combining the adverse effects of CKD on bone with any treatment, like opioids, which further increases bone loss could eventually lead to devastating consequences. The mechanisms that cause opioids to impair bone are not fully understood, especially in CKD. Our goal was to study the effects of opioids on bone in CKD.