Week 4- Lab Protocols and Plan

Welcome back!

This week I went into the lab to learn about lab etiquette and to prepare matrices that I will use to observe cells later on. I have started a list of all the biology terms that I do not know the meanings of and I’m sure it will keep getting longer. I sat in on an experiment that tested the effects of melatonin on rat glioma cells and learned to use some tools in the lab. I also helped with the TMSPMA protocol, which we will use to stick our gelMa hydrogel to. The hydrogel is what’s used for 3D cell culture experiments because the microenvironment is closer to the in-vivo tissue. In the following week, I will write the whole protocol down in both English and Turkish for the professor to publish on their research website. 

I also started brainstorming about the specific neurological components that I can focus on in my paper, that I would be able to observe in the lab. We will discuss our plans this Monday during the meeting with professor Sokullu and the graduate students that I shadow. For the most part, I was getting used to the tempo of working in a lab setting and the commute. I will have an update post later in the week which will summarize the ideas that came out of the meeting on Monday, and I will lay out a clear lab plan according to those ideas. In addition to that, next week’s blog post will get into the neuroscience aspect of radicalization, so I believe that the length and content of that will balance out this short update.

See you next week,

Amber