I began researching at the Cohen Lab last Monday. When I came at 9 am on Monday, I was really excited! I was excited about the research I read about in the lab's articles. I was also excited because I had completed a lot of animal training modules and tons of paperwork to be approved to work at this lab. Because I will be doing animal research, I had to study/ take tests on ethical training, rodent surgical procedures, how to apply anesthetics, ext. The process of obtaining a CHOP ID is extremely intricate and took months of paperwork completion, a FBI fingerprint scan, and hands on orientation on Tuesday, June 10th. After the orientation, I was SO excited to begin researching at the lab.
CHOP animal research personnel cannot start researching until they complete required training and documentation. On June 10th, I went to CHOP for orientation and had the coolest experience ever! This was not the first day of my lab- this was a precursor to the start of my lab. I found out that my lab does research in two facilities- the Colket Translational Research Center (CTRB) and the Abramson Research Center. The main office of the Cohen Lab is located in the Abramson research Center but most of the lab mice are held in SUB-LEVEL 3 of CTRB. Research is conducted in both CTRB and Abramson. I will be working with a graduate named Colin on mice behavior before brain injury in CTRB. For at least two weeks I will conduct T-test maze trials on mice with and without intervals between each test. I think that sub-level 3 is so cool because I need to swipe my card on the elevator, past doors, and on machines to access the facilities. Because sub-level 3 is also completely sterile, all researchers put on scrubs, face masks, hairnets, gloves, smocks, and foot coverings when entering the facilities. (I feel like a spy.) Unfortunately, although I picked up my CHOP ID last Monday (my first day), the ID office has not yet given me permission to enter facilities in CTRB and I have not been able to start my research. I spent my first week watching Cohen Lab members do research in Abramson. Although it is not where or what I will be researching, I enjoyed learning about all of the research going on in the Cohen Lab.
The Cohen lab is relatively small. The lab consists of my PI, Dr. Cohen, two graduate students, Colin and Chris, Shanti (I am not sure if she is an undergrad, grad student, or postdoc), Sean, and Brian. The first two days I watched over Shanti's research. Shanti took injured (Sham) mice and non-injured mice, applied anesthesia, cut off their heads using scissors, quickly extracted the brain put it in a carbonated sucrose solution to keep the brain slices alive. Then, she cut slices of the brain using A MACHINE THAT COSTS MORE THAN $20,000! The small metal blade that cuts the brain into slices is supposedly $20,000. Then Shanti would put live slices of the hippocampus under a microscope and stimulate field potential reaction with electrodes. The field potential of the brain cell was analyzed on a computer next to the microscope. After the initial graphs, Shanti injected a GABA drug into the brain cell that inhibited field potentials. I watched Sean take slices and make solutions on Thursday, as well. A lot of solution and machine preparations are needed before the experiments take place. In math this year we learned how to graph 3D objects, which is how Shanti and Sean controlled the electrodes on the microscope! Time is really important to all of the research at the Cohen Lab because the brain cells need to be kept alive. Each dissection takes only 90 seconds! On Wednesday, I came to the lab and sorted through a bunch of chemicals (lab cleaning). Although it was not research, I was glad for something to do. Some of the chemicals dated back to 1988! On Fridays, the Cohen Lab has lab meetings. We listened to one of Dr. Cohen's students talk about her research in the Cohen Lab. She was studying female mice and brain injury because the Cohen Lab had previously only researched male mice and they were not getting approved for grants. I personally thought that this presentation was extremely helpful to my understanding of the lab as a whole. It gave me a better understanding of the overall goal of the lab. Basically, they are determining whether or not certain GABA drugs can help fix brain impairments after TBI. I lot of the people in the lab have different projects. Most of the research relates to brain injury in the hippocampus but Chris is researching the impact of brain injury on the Amygdala. Brian works on technical and chemical research. I think my PI is awesome! He was reviewing a lot of grants last week but he was emailing back and forth all last week with the CHOP ID office to get my ID approved. We also have a strange amount of things in common! He likes New Zealand, skiing, and his son is a coxswain! Dr. Cohen told me that he is waiting for security to email him with the access corrections and that I should be able to start researching soon.
I commute to the lab by train and like it a lot! I have to wake up around 6:45 to be at the lab by 9. I My ID is supposed to be approved by this afternoon so hopefully I will be able to do research today!
These are the chemicals I sorted!
THIS IS THE REALLY EXPENSIVE BRAIN SLICE MACHINE! It has to be calibrated before each use.
This is the counter where they do brain dissections. The tubes are used to oxygenate sucrose solutions because the brain needs oxygen to stay alive. The heat tray heats the sucrose solutions. The top draw to the far left is where they cut off the heads of the mice.
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