Well today I got my poster (4×6 is much bigger than I had imagined) and it looks beautiful. Look for it at Haverford Summer Research Symposium Sept. 24. In other news, my presentation went very smoothly. I was presently surprised to have two Colonels in attendance! Afterwards, the lab had a little celebratory brunch which was delicious and another wonderful surprise.

What follows is a brief synopsis of my summer and a couple of acknowledgments.

Summer Research Experience Synopsis
Human Performance Lab
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda MD
Summer 2011

For the past 10 weeks, I have been interning in the Human Performance Lab at USUHS where I have had the privilege of training with world-class scientists working to understand the molecular mechanisms behind different health disparities and human performance injuries and illnesses. The experience, while challenging, gave me the opportunity to not only learn, but actively pursue important questions in the field of health disparities by putting what I had learned into practice.
I especially benefited from a close relationship with my supervisor who throughout my internship taught me how to perform countless new lab techniques (DNA extraction, enzyme-linked immunosorbet assays, western blotting, phlebotomy, and Chemiluminescence and UV analysis to name a few). While these new skills will surely prove valuable in the coming months and years, the opportunity to pursue original research during my 10 weeks was equally if not more exciting. Under the guidance of my supervisor, I designed and carried out my own research project examining the relationship between an important protein in the stress response cascade (the glucocorticoid receptor), BMI, and ethnicity. This project gave me the opportunity to learn first-hand how research is conducted from the design and implementation of the experiment to the analysis and presentation of data. It is worth mentioning that the opportunity to characterize a protein in a novel way and contribute something to the scientific community was particularly gratifying.
Looking back, I am grateful for the support of my supervisors and the KINSC steering committee who made it possible for me to ask important questions about the biochemistry underlying health disparities. I believe this experience of asking and then pursuing these questions was particularly valuable in my development as a researcher and something I fully expect to inform future research endeavors at Haverford and beyond.

Also special thanks to Jenny Punt for her support!

Last week at USUHS! Yes, Its hard to believe, but 10 weeks has flown by. After my supervisor made final edits to my poster yesterday, I submitted it to the Media office to be printed. [It is supposed to be ready on Friday, my last day, so fingers crossed everything comes though.] In addition to preparing a poster to bring back to Haverford to present at the Summer Research Symposium Sept. 24, I have been preparing a short presentation that I will be giving to everyone working in the Human Performance Lab on tomorrow. Basically all the summer interns present upon the conclusion of their internship.

Well the day has finally arrived. After a full day of running the sample (which turned out to have a few Caucasians mixed in) I have data. And not just any data! After running an ANOVA (analysis of variance) test with SPSS I can say that our results are significant and that they show Obese subjects expressed GR at a higher level than Overweight subjects and Overweight subjects expressed GR at a higher level than Normal subjects. The data is much cleaner than I anticipated because the samples were 3+ years old and in some cases had significant coagulation. Since the poster is basically prepared and I just need to play around with the data a little more, I will have time to try to find more correlations with GR levels. This afternoon, I correlated GR to ethnicity and found after an ANOVA test that ethnicity was not significantly related to GR expression. This was somewhat unexpected because African Americans tend to have higher levels of the ACTH hormone which is upstream of GR in the HPA feedback loop. If I have time, I would like to look at the relationship between GR and serum glucose. Other than that, I plan on spending my last week doing final edits on the poster and preparing to present it to the lab at our bi-weekly lab meeting next Thursday.

Yesterday, my long awaited ELISA kits finally arrived wrapped in ice packs leaving me with exactly two weeks to gather some data, analyze it, and past some data into my poster. At this point, we I am still reviewing/tweaking the protocol, but Joel and I have decided to give it a shot on monday. Fingers crossed!

Preparing for the GR ELISA aka labeling hundreds of tubes…

So this past week I was informed that the kits would arrive sometime next week leaving me with about 2 weeks to get some data and analyze it, which is not a lot of time at all but will have to do. In that light, I have spent the last several days doing everything I can so that when they actually do arrive, I can hit the ground running. I have organized all the sample into the appropriate subgroups [normal weight, overweight, and obese], prepared a workbench, and begun working on my poster. On Monday I will be adding PBS to all the samples and hopefully begin sonications. Other than that, I have mostly just spent my time helping out with data entry and screening subjects for the ongoing heat studies. Hopefully by the end of next week, I will have some data to talk about.