Internship

About the Internship Site

Dr. Walker's lab utilizes mouse models to investigate the progression of Lou Gehrig's disease (or ALS - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), and potential therapeutic treatments for patients. The lab is working to identify and understand the regulatory mechanisms that lead to ALS in order to catch ALS early and improve patient prognosis. One of the asymptomatic signs of ALS is that there is a dismantling of the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) and progressive disconnection of motor neurons from NMJs, indicating future physiological changes- like atrophy- to skeletal muscles.

Project Summary

My internship has focused on analyzing denervation-induced skeletal muscle atrophy in nerve injury and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) models. In the nerve injury model, the sciatic nerve in the right hind limb was surgically cut to document how sudden nerve damage leads to disconnection of the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) and subsequent skeletal muscle atrophy in mice. The denervation is useful both for comparing how it can mimic progressive skeletal muscle atrophy that occurs in ALS and how a sudden severance of the sciatic nerve can lead to unique characteristics in atrophy progression. Despite multiple causes of denervation skeletal muscle atrophy, the carboxyl-terminal modulator protein (CTMP) is a common contributor. The Walker lab has identified that upregulation of CTMP promotes skeletal muscle atrophy progression in these models, and the involvement of this protein has been a focus of my project.

Mouse Models for Lou Gehrig's Disease or ALS Research describing why catching ALS is important, what the Walker Lab utilizes in their research, and one asymptomatic sign of ALS. An image of a lab mouse is included in the top half of the image.

Elevator Pitch Visual for Walker Lab

Final Project

Workplace

Strengths that I bring to the team include being dependable and having a commitment to improving where I may fall short. I know when to ask for help or clarification and have been less shy about that; in a similar vein, I have grown to appreciate working in teams and have learned that I can contribute quite well to taking detailed notes throughout the documentation process.

I have grown more independent in conducting experiments and have been able to identify where I may have messed up; for example, when creating Western Blots I have had trouble with 1) sealing the gels in the electrophoresis chamber plate holder without having leakage and 2) transferring the gel to the membrane paper without tearing it. To fix the first problem, I have learned that you can both place a paper towel under the electrophoresis chamber plate holder to check for leakage. If the paper towel starts getting wet after you have poured running buffer between the two plates, then there is a leak and you need to try sealing the plates properly again. For transferring the gel over to the membrane, you can pour a little bit of Transblot transfer buffer onto your gel in order to let it move without adhering then tearing to the plastic surface of the plate.

Becoming more independent has freed up time for my lab manager to complete her other tasks when needed, but she has still shown me new things over time. At the end of January 2024, I was even asked by my lab manager to help another student with showing her how to finish the first step of doing a Western Blot. It was really fun to be able to teach someone and explain why part of a procedure is done a certain way. Also, I help with making certain reagents when we run low to save other people time in the lab - it can be quite annoying (or make you very sad) to have to pause on a step in a procedure just to make a new batch of a reagent.

My areas of growth are learning how to better present and gaining more confidence/ability in my work. I would be open to learning about clubs/groups that help improve your public speaking. For gaining confidence, learning more lab skills and software may help. I would like to learn more about how to use GraphPad Prism software in order to create statistical analysis figures.

Working with professionals who are a generation or two older than me has proven to be quite valuable. They have told me about what it was like to go to university and conduct research before the age of lab machines, and computers and accompanying softwares, which is not that long ago.

My PI has at least a decade of experience in researching ALS, something that I have no familiarity with. We have had conversations where he has had to break down concepts/mechanisms/pathways to me, simply because I am not trained in nor well-versed in all of the ALS research that is out there. He told me that there is mutual benefit in interactions between experts and non-experts: non-experts can learn more and gain knowledge while the expert can recall what they know and may make new connections that they could not piece together before.

My lab manager had mentioned how some procedures- such as counting cells with a hemocytometer- had to be done by hand; you could not insert the slide into a machine that would instantaneously count all your living and dead cells. What stood out to me was that she said there is value in being able to do procedures by hand. She mentioned instances where your lab equipment or software could not be working that day, but you still need to make progress on your experiments. Hearing about someone's transition from conducting research decades ago to being a researcher now has made me gain an appreciation for how far we come as well as an admiration for how committed someone can be to their field.

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