Week 3 - Moni









This was a short work week thanks to the July 4 holiday. I completed training on the multiphoton microscope on Wednesday, and imaged some mice on Thursday. I use the multiphoton microscope to get second harmonic generation images of tendon. This modality allows for visualization of collagen fibers. Damaged tendons should have unorganized collagen fibers, whereas healthy tendons' fibers are aligned. Thus, this imaging technique can be used as a semi-quantitative metric of collagen disorganization and of the lab's patellar tendinopathy model.

Sample second harmonic generation image of rabbit tendon. Adapted from Hase et al., 2016

Unfortunately, I ran into some problems with the imaging setup. Due to the anatomy of the mouse knee, there was not enough distance between the mouse knee that I was imaging and the microscope objective, so I could not locate the sample under the microscope. I have altered the design of the stage we use to mount the mouse, and will return try again next Monday and hope to have better luck.


I also obtained some more surgical discards for culture for my integrin study, while shadowing Dr. Rodeo's procedures on Friday. I got to see a rotator cuff repair, total shoulder replacement, and biceps tendon repair.


On Thursday, I attended a seminar by a student studying tendon at WUSTL. This was interesting to me, as she studies tendon mechanics at the cell and tissue level in ex vivo culture, similar to my project back in Ithaca. I had the opportunity to talk to her about our research and gave some feedback on her project, while receiving some on mine as well.

Over the weekend, I went to Flushing, Queens with some friends to try authentic Chinese food. I had the most amazing lamb and carrot dumplings ever. 10/10 recommend. It was also a really nice area to walk around and buy some cheap mangos. I've also checked out Central Park, the Upper West Side, lots of bagel places (H&H is the best), Chick-Fil-A, and lots of Indian food. I also went to the UCB comedy club and watched a sketch comedy show, which was fantastic. On Independence Day, I met up with some friends from college and spent the day at the beach, then watched the fireworks from Brooklyn. It was a great view, because the Manhattan skyline was behind the fireworks (not very clear from the photo, but take my word for it).


Despite the long weekend, I feel like I had the opportunity to be productive in lab, and explore a lot of the city. I realized that we're approaching the halfway point of Immersion, so time to make the most of my stay here.




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