Week four was, as always, very busy in the lab. I virgined, larval turned, and set up crosses of fruit flies. Wednesday was lab meeting, and this week a graduate student, Alyssa, was presenting about a paper she was hoping to publish that had recently been sent to reviews and returned with corrections that should be made before being sent to a scientific journal or magazine. The paper discussed how futsch, a microtubule-associated protein expressed in both central and peripheral nervous system neurons, is a translational target and is neuroprotective. The entire lab contributed on ways to make the paper publishing ready, by explaining and defending the thesis and data presented in the paper. Alyssa discussed what the reviews found flawed in her paper, and what they determined to be not clear enough. The lab also discussed what scientific journal would be best to send this paper. For me, this was a really interesting look into the publishing process of a scientific research paper.
I also began to input my larval turning data that I have been collecting for the last two weeks into excel. I re-learned how to work excel, as it seems I have to every time I use it, and I looked for statistical significance in the data I collected. I don't have a full set of data quite yet, but as soon as I do I will be able to look to see if the diet of high sugar is improving the motor function of the diseased larvae enough to be statistically significant.
Your SRP sounds really cool so far. I've been trying to catch up reading on posts. Do you know why the larvae eating the food with the smaller concentrations of sugar are developing faster? While I was reading, I expected the ones eating the food from the higher concentrations of sugar to be developing faster.
ReplyDeleteI also applaud your bravery in dealing with these fruit flies and larvae. I would never have been able do it let alone set foot in that lab hehe. But can't wait to hear more about your experiments!!
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DeleteHi Brittnay! I actually asked the other members of my team why the flies with higher concentrations were developing slower, and they said they didn't have a definitive answer for me, but we agreed that it probably had to do with the fact that it was an extremely high concentration, and that much sucrose upset their normal metabolic functions.
DeleteYes, Brittnay is deathly afraid of insects, especially flying ones, I can attest. Nothing scary about rice, I guess?
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