Cindy Tung / Dr. Susan Gauthier - Week 3

I had the opportunity to be in the neurology ICU during their morning rounds where physicians and nurses brief the attending on each patient on the floor and discuss treatment plans moving forward. After that, they went to each of the patient's rooms to check on their progress and briefly speak with the patients. While some patients were progressing towards improvement and even getting discharged, some had worsening conditions beyond treatable. 

In the neurology reading room, I shadowed radiologist Elcin Zan as she looked through patient images including PET and MRI. During MR-guided PET reconstruction, the reconstruction happens inside the scanner whereas MR-guided is a reformation of an existing image. A key difference I noticed between neurology reading versus cardiac reading is that much of the analysis of the brain comes from the expertise of the physician. Other than measuring the size of lesions or parts of the brain, any irregularities are pointed out manually by the radiologist. On the other hand, cardiology analysis stems from computing stroke volume and blood flow following the time progression of one cardiac cycle. This difference most likely stems from the motion of the heart beating during scans compared to a still image of the brain in a head coil during a scan. The following image shows cortical injury from an invasive surgery as a result of demyelination. The lesions are identified by a bright/hyperintensity lump in FLAIR.

I also shadowed Laura while she performed tumor cell culturing in the lab. Cells are grown in a flask containing red fluorescent media (growth source) and stored in a freezer (~ -20°C) to grow. After a couple days, the flask is washed with PBS, and cells are detached using Trypsin. To count the number of cells, trypan blue is used to stain the cells, then 10 μL are examined under this machine on a microscope slide. 

Cell Count Machine

After cell count, red media is added back to the tube and centrifuged down to form pellets of cells. The cells are then resuspended in PBS and kept in an ice bath. 

Procedure Setup

The mice injection procedure is as follows:

1. Use isoflurane to sedate them

2. Measure their weight

3. Shave the lower abdomen area 

4. Inject 10 μL (contains 1 million cells) into the mice 

5. tag the ears for identification 






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ana Witkowski / Dr. Bostrom Week 8

 This summer has gone by so fast! This week was mostly just wrapping up the summer. I went and saw a little bit more of the mouse gait analysis and acclimation. Learning how to acclimate the mice for the gait analysis is super important for the consistency of the data, as mice that haven’t been acclimatized to the treadmill have a much wider spread and learning curve over the experiment. We learned how the mice get tire after about a minute of running, even if you spread that minute out over a couple bouts of running, which was super important for the next couple days of acclimation.  I also got the opportunity this week to shadow in the Gait and Motion Analysis lab for a case. I have never seen the human gait analysis before, so I was immensely grateful for this opportunity! I spent the afternoon learning about the cameras and the calibration, watching a full PT exam, and then watching a gait analysis videotaping. There are 14 cameras, 4 force plates, and so many reflective s...
Read more

Ellen Brooks/Dr. Robert Marx - Week 1

One action packed week complete already! The first few days of this week were filled with orientation meetings, introductions to Dr. Marx and his clinical team, and tours of the research facilities.  On Monday, I started shadowing Dr. Marx, his resident Dr. Braum, and his PA, Joe, through clinical rotations. As a person that has been in the patients chair many times, it is fascinating to see the doctor-patient interaction from the other side and to start to notice how the Dr. Marx is able to connect abnormalities in flexibility and gait to possible diagnoses.  I continued my shadowing of Dr. Marx late in the week in the Operating Room. Here I observed two total knee replacements, a removal of hardware from a previous, complicated ACL repair surgery, and an ACL surgery. The ACL surgery which I observed will be included in an on going research project to determine the optimal graft type (hamstring, or patellar tendon) for ACL repair and the benefit of additional stabilization of...
Read more

Marysol Chu / week 8

  It’s hard to believe that summer immersion has come to an end.     The past two months were extremely valuable in expanding my knowledge of the clinical aspect of my research. I was able to build relationships with clinicians in the field actively working on clinical trials and allowed me to interact with patients and identify needs that still exist despite all the advancements that have been made in medicine.     I could not have asked for a better clinician to shadow throughout the summer. Dr. Gomez made sure I saw as much as I could not just within bone marrow transplant but with other clinicians in the hematology/oncology department. I remember the first couple of weeks were emotionally challenging because of the severity of the complications that some of the patients experienced. It was very difficult for me to see them and their families struggling but at the same time I could see the medical team fighting and doing everything they could for the patient....
Read more