This week has been absolutely crazy for me. I had three exams and final project deadlines are quickly approaching! This week in lab I have worked on trying to come up with an idea for obtaining brain slices that are thin enough for me to see proteins but strong enough to survive the staining process. I started by selecting three brains that are positive for frontal lobe hematoma and three brains that do not have any visible hematoma. I am not sure that there is any significance to this but, I am curious as to why approximately 40 percent of the brains in an unopened bucket are positive and the rest are not. I then used a coring instrument to obtain three samples from each brain and placed them in the -80 degree freezer for 24 hours. The coring process was not much fun, the preservative smell and the close proximity needed for an accurate sample left me feeling a bit nauseous. Perhaps I will do only three at a time for my next coring session. Next I very slowly made slices using my makeshift microtome. I then took these slices and stained them using crystal violet. I have been able to slice them extremely thin but once I start staining them they disintegrate, littering the sink with brain matter which is a bit gross. The problem with such thin slices is that they thaw once they hit the room temperature microscope slides. Perhaps freezing them again before staining along with the microscope slides will help? I also got to spend time discussing projects with some of my S-STEM colleagues, celebrated Matt Hills birthday, and tried to offer a warm welcome to our newest STEMmers who were busy with their unknown microbe projects. All in all, it was a great week and I am excited to see everyone's presentations in the very near future!
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| Hematoma Brain |
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| Normal Brain |
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