It’s been a few eventful months of long days working at the bench, troubleshooting difficulties, and collecting data. I was able to achieve most of what I laid out in my original proposal, but not without setbacks.

I originally planned to investigate what the loss of apoC3 does to the intestine in both the whole-mouse knockout model and the organoid (3D cell culture) knockout model. However, after isolating intestinal cells from 8 mice to culture organoids, 4 of them were contaminated with fungus and had to be discarded, leaving me without enough replicates to analyze. Even after adjusting the isolation protocol to be done in a sterile biosafety cabinet, I was still getting contamination, meaning that it was unlikely to be my own error and any future organoids could also be susceptible to contamination. Until we thoroughly disinfect all equipment, like the incubator and biosafety cabinet, I will be unable to continue that piece of my project.

Even so, I was happy to have been able to finish multiple experiments this summer, like my whole-mouse knockout experiment analyzing lymph output and intestinal tissue after an intraduodenal (in the duodenum of the small intestine) infusion, as well as post-experiment assays to quantify different types of proteins and lipids in my samples. The most valuable thing this fellowship gave me was time. Many of my procedures were hours-long, often taking up a full day, and I would not have seen so much progress had I only been able to work on this during the school year.

My understanding of research has broadened, as I have been able to engage with my peers doing work completely different from my own, like filming documentaries, creating multimedia artworks, and studying contemporary culture. I’ve also learned to trust myself more. When my data was unexpected, my first instinct used to be that I must have made some mistake in the procedure and to treat the data as “wrong.” Now, I know I should have faith in my data when I know that I carried out proven methods in a controlled experiment.

Now that my summer is coming to a close, I’ll be taking a hard-earned break at home with my cats before trying again with my organoid culturing, as well as submitting the work I have done so far to academic conferences. I am also hoping to apply to study abroad or do a national research fellowship in the future to experience life in a different place! I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to do research through the Brackenridge this summer and proud of my progress so far.