The Island Part II

Well I have survived the first few days of my super exciting chemistry class on this island. Needless to say, it was not fun at all. We had six labs to complete in the span of about four days. It was slightly stressful. But now we get to do this research type project, one that we design ourselves, and I'm kind of excited for it. Because that's what I want to do with my life. It's the last thing we have to do this week (besides a lab quiz, which will be simple, and the final, which will definitely not be simple, but whatever), and then I can go home! Well, to Mount Pleasant.

So yeah. Being up here, even for a summer class, feels almost like summer camp again. I'm staying in the "dorms," which are essentially barrack/cabin style bunk beds in a room. The only difference between those and the actual cabins is we don't have to go outside to get to the bathrooms and dining room. Which is nice, because I have never seen so many mosquitoes in one place before. I believe there are so many (they say more than any other year) because of the long winter we had. There was lots of standing water around for them to lay their eggs in. And they don't spray the island for mosquitoes, because they don't want to mess with the ecology of the land.

But anyway, back to the summer camp thing. Sure, we're inside for about nine hours a day, doing chemistry in a lab. But we're all here together, suffering together, learning together, spending everyday together. And that's basically summer camp. I mentioned to the professor that this is like science camp on steroids, and he agreed wholeheartedly. The summer camp feel creates something I like to call the "summer camp mentality" between those of us who are in the class. I have always thought that this is one of the greatest and worst friend interactions a person will ever had. For one thing, you make great friends for the few weeks you are with them. You promise to talk when we leave, get together once in a while, and remain friends. But this never happens. We leave, go our separate ways, and if we ever see each other and recognize each other we do the awkward eye contact and look away quickly act, pretending we haven't seen each other. That's why it is the worst.

It is also the best, because sometimes these are the people you can have the deepest conversations with. They are the ones that you can talk to easily, because you kind of know, in the back of your mind, that you probably won't see each other again. So you open up to them, and it's wonderful. And that's why the "summer camp mentality" can be the best thing in the world.

So yeah. I haven't decided if this has been a good experience for me. This weekend has been awesome, because we all subconsciously agreed that it was No Chemistry Saturday. Unfortunately, we have to do work today, but yesterday was a much needed day off. But the rest of the time, it has been a lot of work in a short amount of time. Which is probably a good experience that will help me later in life, but right now it's not so fun. But oh well. The island itself is at least nice. But that's it for now. Until next time...

The Island

So I'm stuck on an island for the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately, it is is northern Michigan, not Europe, but that's alright. I get to be up here for a class, which is super exciting. But not really, since it's a chemistry class and I'll be stuck inside for like nine hours out of the day. But anyway.

I thought I'd do a bit on myself again, since there's not much to report about Scotland at the moment. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I'm studying biochemistry, and want to continue on after my undergrad to get into professional research of some sort. In order to kick-start my research career (so soon?!) I joined a research lab at school. I'm involved in Alzheimer's research, which is really cool. And bear with me as I explain what I'm working on, as it can be confusing for some. But here it goes.

A little background as Alzheimer's disease. It's a neurological disease, so it attacks the brain. Alzheimer's disease and diseases like it occur due to neuron tangles, which are literally neurons that get balled up with other neurons and mix pathways and such. This is why people with Alzheimer's disease have such trouble with memory. The lab I am in deals with a protein called tau, which has been linked to Alzheimer's disease in many different studies. It's been shown that something goes wrong somewhere in the life cycle of this protein and causes these neurons to tangle. However, where this thing goes wrong is not known. Which is why making a drug to cure or prevent Alzheimer's is so tricky. My lab is working on figuring this out, and we each have different projects dedicated to it.

My project this summer is trying to figure out how these bad versions of tau are degraded, so that we can enhance that degradation pathway. You might be thinking, don't cells just kill themselves if they aren't working right? Sometimes, yes. But with tau, it is almost being overlooked by the protein that labels things for degradation. But explaining that would take a whole different post. So we have this bad version of tau that is causing neurons to become tangled with each other. There are two different degradation pathways that malfunction proteins can take, either the ubiquitin-proteosome system (this is the basic degradation pathway of most proteins and cells and such) or the autophagy system (this usually kicks in with the presence of certain chemicals or proteins). My job is to try to figure out which system will degrade bad tau more efficiently.

To do this, I get to dissect fly larvae, take out their brains, essentially mash them up, and try to get the neurons to grow in cell culture. When these neurons grow in culture (which took me a semester plus to get to happen), we can treat them with different drugs to enhance certain pathways. For this project, we wanted to focus on autophagy, so we chose two drugs - one that enhances autophagy, and one that stops it from occurring. We will then see which treatment causes the most bad tau to go away.

That is a really broad way of putting it, but I hope it's at least somewhat interesting. I'm excited about it anyway! Until next time...

The Countdown Begins!

So it's been a while since my last post, and my family has been bugging me about one so here it goes.

It's officially 1 month until I board the plane to head to Scotland. Exciting, I know. It really doesn't seem like the trip is so close, but it is. I already have two side excursions, which is exciting. I will be heading to the Highlands the second weekend I am there, of course to see the famous Loch Ness. And also get some breathtaking sights, I'm sure. I read that otters and dolphins can sometimes be spotted in the cliffs of the Highlands, so let's hope for some sightings!

The second trip is an excursion to Ireland, partly for the International Relations class I will be taking. I wanted to try and get to Ireland at some point during my stay, so the fact that this is a requirement of the class made things very easy for me. I will only be staying in Ireland for one night, in Belfast, which is the capital of Northern Ireland. I won't get the chance to make it to Dublin, but perhaps another time. Belfast is one of the locations that the Titanic was docked at, so hopefully I can be touristy for a day and check that out.

All in all, this trip is shaping up to be very exciting. Not that it wasn't going to be exciting to begin with, but actually booking these trips makes everything seem real, and not just some idea or concept in my head. Now all I have to do is patiently wait out the next four weeks and I will be on my way! The next few weeks should be fairly busy anyway, so hopefully they'll go by quickly. I can't wait to blog from Scotland! Especially from some cozy cafe somewhere, sipping delicious tea and eating scones. At least one afternoon will have to be spent that way anyway. Until next time...