Determining the Dependence of Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Expression on Opioid Receptors

This week, my mentor was in Minneapolis visiting his family, so I couldn't be in the lab (due to Barrow policy). Instead, I read some more of the articles he sent me about nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. They're not easy to read, as I don't have a Ph. D in molecular neuroscience, but I got through most of them with the help of Google. Additionally, I read up on the cloning method that we will be performing when I return: FastCloning, which was developed by a team that my mentor was actually a member of. Dr. Chang will arrive Monday night, so I'll be back to work on Tuesday!

Hey, everyone! I'm back with another weekly summary of my activities at BNI. The materials for my project finally arrived this week! We started preparing them while working on the zinc-activated ion channel project that I was working on last week . On Monday, I continued collecting data from the oocytes using the voltage clamp and the same chemicals. Although we were getting consistent responses from some of the eggs, they were definitely less robust, and most of the eggs did not produce any response at all. This was most probably because the eggs had weakened over the weekend, as they had been originally injected with the ion channel DNA one whole week ago. What the reading from the voltage clamp looks like on the computer. The troughs indicate activation of the zinc-activated ion channels due to various concentrations of the surrounding solution. On Tuesday, we attended a luncheon/presentation at Barrow about the production and usage of research-grade cigarettes, wh

Yesterday concluded my very first week working as a volunteer researcher at Dr. Yongchang Chang's laboratory at Barrow Neurological Institute! It was truly fascinating to see (and perform) current research in the neuroscientific field rather than reading about it in a decade-old textbook. I especially enjoyed using the highly specialized equipment that can't be found in any high school lab (and appreciated that he let me use it at all). All in all, I am really looking forward to the remaining nine weeks. Here is a summary of my daily activities, simplified for readability and confidentiality (this research is not yet published.) As of now, the materials for my specific project have not yet arrived, so I spent this week assisting Dr. Chang with another topic he is currently researching. On Monday, he explained to me this topic of study: zinc-activated ion channels, which are present in the human brain, spinal chord, lungs, kidneys, and many other regions. Very little is kn