Last Thoughts

As I'm working on this final blog it's slowly coming to me that my time here is coming to an end. Funny how I almost didn't even apply to see last year. My chemistry teacher came up to me one day and asked if I would be interested in applying. Meanwhile I just failed the last two chem test and you think I want to do this for the summer! I really didn't think of applying since I felt wasn't going to be accepted. But I decided to apply and a couple of months later out of nowhere Dr. Aitken called saying I was accepted. After the excitement phase came the (what did I get myself into) phase. But once I got here things were easier (especially since everyone else knew as much as me). I've gone through many experiences that were both good and bad. It was nerve racking presenting in group meetings, since other professors and grad students were there. Presenting at the symposium was an incredible experience being next to college students who had much more experience than us.



The field trips we went on including Bayer, PPG, Mylon and my favorite Washington and Jefferson College. They were all interesting in their own way and the car rides to and from were great.



But not everything was fun and games though. The weeks before the symposium and during the lab reports were both frustrating and time consuming. But when looking back on it I do appreciate Mr. Lucas taking his time working on our papers, (especially mine). I hope to think that my grammar skills have improved somewhat since being here.



At the end of it all I learned an incredible amount of knowledge about Chemistry. I worked with HPLC and Microfluidics and accomplished a lot in my short time here. I feel that I made an impact in my lab and it certainly boost my confidence for anything I do later on in life.

There are so many people to thank for helping me here so let me start.

First, I would like to thank Dr. Aitken for choosing me to do this summer research program. I hope she feels she made the right decision by selecting me.

My professor Dr. Mitch Johnson for his guidance and help on me understanding my project.

My student mentors Angela and Sean for their patience and knowledge and help. I know that without them I wouldn't have understood anything.

Mr. Josh Lucas for being my temporary guardian for these past two summers. Everything he has done has been appreciated and I give him my eternal gratitude.

And of course the friends that I made over these summers. Amanda, Sydney, Terrance, Candy, James, Mary, Chris, Ian, Liz, and Marissa have given me memorable moments that I won't soon forget. Thank you everyone.


Everyone says how proud they are of me for sacrificing my summer to do hard research at a program. And every time I laugh inside thinking that "sacrifice" was never the adjective in my mind to describe my time here at Project SEED.

Amazing Amanda Anderson

Since the veterans are sticking together we must have Amanda showcase her works. Amanda is testing dietary supplements and the dangerous elements in them. These supplements come from companies that could possibly have contamination in them. Her goal is to find those contamination's such as lead, cadmium, and even arsenic.




In this picture Amanda is prepping Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS). The ICP-MS is used for analysis of the blanks, standards, and samples involved in this project. Before the processing is started, a calibration curve is made to help determine how much of certain dangerous element is in the supplement. And the results are mind blowing!

Amanda has done incredible work over the past two summers to expose the companies of their negligence and making a safer enviornment for buying supplements. Nice Work!

Sydney Burkholder the Magnificent!

I've been working with Sydney for these past two summers and it's certainly been exciting if nothing else. Since Sydney worked upstairs in the pharmaceutical department so I never really saw her work environment. Until this year when I ventured her room. It looked just like our chemistry labs. Looks like all science is just messy.





In this picture, Sydney is pipeting cells and splitting them among 35 mm plates. She's doing this to be able to treat the cells with different concentrations of novel compounds. Once all the plates are treated, Sydney will lyse the cells. This allows her to eventually run a protein assay and a western blot analysis.



Sydney's project involves a very serious problem, Breast Cancer, which is a leading cause of death particularly involving women. She works exclusively with Extracellular signal-regulated kinase 5 (ERK5)an understanding it's role in breast cancer research. Hopefully, advancements in this research can lead to possible therapies in breast cancer.






















As you can see, Sydney's work is not only intriguing but important as well. And her work has certainly helped the ongoing progress of breast cancer research. Great job!

Interview with Dr. Cascio

This is my second year at Project Seed and things are relatively the same from the previous year. But there is something different this year. With the addition of another student, another professor also has joined us in Liz's professor Dr. Mike Cascio. He's the only professor that us students don't know about so I figured he'd be the best candidate to interview with.

Dr. Cascio came from Yonkers, New York and graduated from Roosevelt High School. It was a public school, so there wasn't many opportunities such as Project Seed. He even went through hard times including being nearly bankrupted at some point. So he really had to work hard to get what he wanted. And he certainly did that being accepted to Cornell University, a prestigious Ivy League school. He double majored in Chemistry and Biology and received his B.A. from the School of Arts and Sciences.

His interest in Chemistry has always been a focal point in his life. He even had a boyhood fascination with fire and mixing chemicals. Throughout his time at Cornell, he was passionate about chemistry, as well as math and physics. He credits his Intro to Biological Sciences teacher Dr. Charles Keaton, for showing how he can apply his physical chemistry knowledge to biological functions. Ironically, Dr. Keaton is the author of the textbook that he used.

His story of how he arrived at Duquesne was almost a non-story. He and his wife were offered positions at the University of Pittsburgh and he would have accepted the offer. However a colleague of his joined Duquesne's faculty and recommended to him that he should join as well. He applied for the position and loved the unique opportunities and atmosphere that Duquesne is known for. From then on out Dr. Cascio remains a member of Duquesne's faculty. A decision he now knows was a right one.

Currently he and his lab works on the chemistry of proteins at the membrane interface. They look at membrane protein structure and function, and the holding and misfolding of proteins at the membrane surface. Which is shown by his Seed student Liz Thorton, who currently works on the structure and function of the glycine receptors. "He's really nice and dependable and a great professor to work with." Says Liz, who really enjoyed working with Dr. Cascio this summer.

Dr. cascio says his biggest accomplishments in life is having three wonderful children as well of having the ability to balance both his professional and personal life. He says there isn't anything he truly regrets which shows how he puts his own life into perspective. I asked him what his futures entails and he says he wants to continue his research alongside young scientist with the same passion for chemistry as he does. Finally, I wanted to know what advice he had for both current and future Seed kids; "Follow your passion and make certain you enjoy what you are doing."

Dr. Cascio has dedicated his life to his research and his family and been undoubtedly been successful at it. And we will see what more accomplishments Dr. Cascio will achieve in the many more years he will be at Duquesne university.

Dr. Aitken Returns

Yesterday came the return of Dr. Aitken, the person responsible for bringing us here. She was out on maternal leave with the expectant arrival of the new baby (who was really cute). She stopped by for just a few hours to see everyone and it was nice to see her. She says she will be back for the symposium so I better get working to make her proud.

Microfluidics

The field of microfluidics is relatively new to Chemistry. It has only been around for a couple of decades, but it's popularity has increased in not only the the chemistry department, but engineering and physics as well. Microfluidics is the observation and controlling of fluids at microscopic levels. The benefits of microfluidics include its cheaper cost and the unique ability to obtain the necessary results in mere seconds.

The objectives of my project includes trying various ratios to obtain continuous droplet flow using the microfluidic process. The ratios are from both the Oil and Aqueous Phase machines that is connected to syringes. The Oil Phase machine has a syringe filled with three milliliters filled with oil. As for the Aqueous Phase machine, three syringes are used. Two of them are filled with three milliliters of methanol. As for the other syringe, three milliliters of water is used mixed with food coloring dye. These syringes are attached to wire tubes that are connected to the microfluidic chip with droplets that I'm trying to form.

Once the preparation process is completed, I set ratios for the Phases to run. During the runs, it is normal for the run to come to an abrupt halt due to stalling. Stalling occurs when there is too much pressure on the Aqueous phases. Which will cause the droplet making to come to a halt as well. Ways that I can prevent stalling includes using new syringes with new methanol, and just using as many ratios as I can hoping that I can achieve my goals for this summer.

Meeting Time!

Tomorrow is our first Project Seed meeting and the veterans are presenting first. Me, Amanda and Sydney will be showing the others what to expect in our meetings. Last year, I was pretty nervous about presenting in front of everyone but this year I don't have the same nerves. That being said, I still prefer watching instead of presenting. That's why I plan on going first.

A New Beginning

I can't believe that this summer has finally arrived! It's great to see Mr. Lucas, Amanda and Sydney again as well as Dr. Johnson and my lab group. I met the four new ones and they seem pretty cool so far. I'm excited to be working on a new project and hope that these eight weeks will be an even better experience than last year.

Final Moments

Well, it finally came. It really only felt like yesterday when I first arrived here scared of what I'm getting myself into. Not knowing who these other kids were, or whether or not I'm even cut out for this. Well, my questions were quickly answered. I made 8 new friends from Sto-Rox and can't wait to see them again. At first I felt my project was too difficult but things became much easier and soon I was handling things on my own. I even accomplished what I wanted to do in detecting picomolar amines. These 8 weeks were fun and trying the same time with presentations, and lab reports it was very stressful at times. But we all persevered through and I can't wait until next summer. These fun times in and out the lab have given me great memories that will certainly last much longer than $2800.

Symposium Success!

On Friday, I attended the annual URP symposium. Leading up to the big day, not just myself but all the project seed members were nervous. My biggest fear was that I forgot important things or that I didn't explained things to the best of my ability to people so that they would have a better understanding of my project. Overall, I feel that I did a pretty good job explaining myself and it definitely got better by each person that came by. The highlight of my day was when Mr. Moss my high school Chemistry teacher at Carrick came by to see how I was doing. He seemed very impressed with my work and proud with that one of his students is doing something as cool as this in the summer. There's only two weeks left and now the big project is the lab report we have to write at the end of the program. Better get started now!

Great job Candy and Mr. Lucas!

The other day two of the project seed students had to present what they are doing this summer in a project seed meeting. Almost every week some of us will have to do a small powerpoint presentation on thier respective project. Mr. Lucas did a great job on his and really explained to us the point of his project in a way we could understand even though we don't. But I was really impressed by Candy's performance. Espeacially doing it on short notice and only having a week to get familiar with her subject. I don't know if I could do it but she pulled it off great and I'm real proud of her. Now the rest of us have raise the bar higher to compete with her.

Tristan

Getting To Know the Subject

The project I'm working on is the Development of Standard Methods for Phospholipids analysis. I probably only know two of those words. What I know now is how the HPLC works (High-Performance Liquid Chromatograhy). It's actually a pretty cool machine to use and I get to use it a lot. Hopefully by the end of the summer I can become an expert on the subject.