internship year 2
nsu neuroscience
It started out in June 2018, when my dad convinced me to go to a two-week long Neuroscience camp being held at Nova Southeastern University.
My days there were filled with rich lectures on the most cutting-edge science, and hands-on experiments that opened my eyes.
I had developed a good impression to the professors there, and when time came to start thinking about my internship, NSU Neuroscience was on the top of my list.
After getting over some major liability hurdles to get on the campus, I was placed in the lab with my mentor Sarah, a 4th year Neuroscience major.
When I would go there on Wednesdays, she would instruct me on DNA Extractions, PCR running, Alpha Amelayse, and anything else they needed lab assistance with.
The equipment I was exposed to was top-of-the-line, expensive machines that took sophisticated care to follow the procedures, things that Sarah entrusted me to do.
A few months into my internship, I was given permission by a familiar Professor, Dr.Starratt, to attend her lectures. I felt so blessed for the opportunity to go to college class for free as a high school student, and in a subject I loved. Even though I wasn't graded, I enthusiastically took notes every day I was there.
Shortly after, when the semester-long class ended, I was given permission to attend Dr. Tartar's Intro to Neuroscience course, where I continued my note-taking endeavors.
When Sarah undertook a new gene study, she offered me a place in it, testing my own friends' and teachers' DNA, as well as my own. The results opened my eyes and offered a partial explanation to my reaction to stress, having higher dopamine levels, and a higher risk for depression.
This exciting exploration into my own genotype inspired me to create a project around mental health, and tie all of my passions into one event.
Here I am in the lab, extracting DNA for my mentor's FTO, fat-related gene study.
.jpg)
During the camp, we talked with former NFL player Julius Thomas, who, seeing the effects of brain injury (CTE) on players, decided to pursue a career in Neuroscience at Nova.
We coordinated with the Neuroscience Program to hold a brain dissection at South Plantation, where all Pathways students participated free of charge. NSU was kind enough to donate 30 sheep brains and necessary equipment to make this possible.
The Instructor, Dr.Munoz, introduced us to the human-to-human interface experiment, as well as a real human brain.
This is the DNA extraction machine. It was named Kanye because it is very particular about what it needs in order to work.
These are how results look after going through a Polymer Chain Reaction in our machine named Irma. These particular results reflect our testing of the FTO gene, one that is related to diabetes.
Here I am helping my mentor and her lab partner extract DNA from samples they took testing the FTO gene.
Sitting in the lab was a real human brain, a norm in the laboratory of NSU.
I tested teachers and students for their version of the COMT rs4680 marker, which correlates with dopamine levels in the brain and reaction to stressful situations.
When we pipette DNA, we usually need to form a salivary pellet using the fast-spinning centrifuge. Here I am loading samples.
This is the computer program that runs the polymer chain reactions after DNA extraction. We first correspond the samples to the computer before loading them in the machine.
I manually pipetted a group of Alpha Amylase, and I was glad to see the duplicates matched, and that there were no errors shown in the results.
Here I am placing samples in the Qiacube, or Kanye.
