Lab Meetings and Research

This morning I was greeted by Dr. Tucker a few minutes before 8am.We took the winding indoor trek from the Children’s Hospital to the Kennedy Kreiger Institute, a pleasant change from the warmer, straighter outdoor trek Lisa took me on.

On our way over to the lab, we talked a bit about the optical imaging they had done recently, showing me the results of the scan on her phone. She said they were running more today looking for different nanoparticles to light up. Then she had asked me what I did the day previous, and if I was excited about the lab meeting that was happening this afternoon. I was definitely interested in seeing their meeting with multiple ends of the lab, and seeing how they work together on adapting their experiments after each trial.

I had a few quick hours of working with the cryostat and had some visitors this time as well. One was the other Liz telling me about some of the other cool projects Caroline and Miles were working on, and how she hoped to speak with them soon about adding me on to some of those adventures. She giggled and said if she can get Miles to do them correctly, she knows I could tag along in the adventures and help as well.

A little while after lunch, Dr. Tucker came down to pick me up for the lab meeting that would last until the end of my day with her. I cleaned up my station prior to her arrival so we immediately rolled out and walked about ten minutes over to the building I met some of her teammates at the first day. We walked into the meeting, and I saw many familiar faces from my past times here. Dr. Tucker briefly said each of their names again for me and told them mine, and the only new introduction I had was with one of their chemists, Ron. He was definitely one of the more aged partners there.

One of the Many Views I Have During the Day

The lab meeting quickly unfolded with Dr. Jain (Dr. Tucker’s partner) and Dr. Tucker discussing the most recent data gathered, presenting it in a powerpoint presentation. Throughout the presentation, many often contributed their own ideas and possibilities for their findings, along with advising revisions to certain points or wondering what certain data meant in the long term. They divulged about what data to include in their paper (due within a week), and what they should dive deeper into for the grant one of them was writing. Dr. Tucker led most of the powerpoint while Dr. Jain contributed most of the questions and suggestions for revisions.

They soon asked for the voices of other members of the team, talking about many things such as the doses, the means of giving the drugs, translating to patients, and so much more. One would present a possibility and then another would add on until they had a detailed idea of what was happening and how they wanted to move forward with it. I was pretty pleased at how well I could keep up with the conversations and that I could understand a lot of their studies so far and what they were looking for.

By the end of the lab meeting, I was very excited about all of the work they had done in such a short amount of time. They had created a game plan for the next month (at least) in a very short period. Dr. Tucker said that it was one of their most productive meetings she’s had, and that it was great they had a strong, definitive plan moving forward. I also learned how many different types of TB there were and what medicines were effective on which kind.

Lisa and Dr. Tucker stayed after the meeting to talk about plans for tomorrow with the rabbits and with me as well. She showed me some more scans from the day and we talked to her pharmacist friend about which drugs she could mix together in one solution. Lisa also laughed at how funny some of the rabbits were, such as the one that continues to grow rather quickly despite it being infected with TB. She said, “He’s just like, whatever, TB, I’m just going to keep doin’ my thing!”

I can’t believe this day was my second to last day. I am exhausted from learning so much and seeing all of the different aspects of this lab, but it feels like I’ve been a part of this team for a long time which has made me really happy. I really enjoy everyone on this team and each one of them is unimaginably intelligent and hardworking. I can’t wait for my last day with them but it’s going to be hard not seeing the work they’ve been doing or getting updates on their progress! I am excited to bring back my knowledge from this experience and translate these role models into my own daily life at RPCS.

General Knowledge I Learned from Today

• Dr. Tucker and Dr. Jain are currently focusing on the use of steroids with a strain of TB on the rabbits and are working to find the max effective dose
• Today the team was working on optical imaging after injecting treatments to the rabbits to see where it had spread in the brain after 30 minutes
• Sometimes just the treatment (to aid in fighting TB) can actually harm the animals more than TB itself does
• Most rabbits infected do not become symptomatic, ever
• Their most common route of treatment is through feeding the rabbits Ensure with the prescription drugs (oral vs. IV)
• They are currently also studying the plasma levels in the carotid after injection, and are trying to tackle some confusing (or strange) data from the most recent group