Project allocations came out last week, and I got my second choice—Peter McNaughton's lab! Put simply, my project will involve transfecting a gene for a particular pain-modulating ion channel into mouse knockouts of the same gene. This is to make sure that the ion channel does what we think it does, which means restoring pain-modulation to the nerve cells.
Not a bad project, I must say. Now that I've met with the PI, I'm actually quite glad that I got this project over my first choice—because of all the cool things I will learn how to do! This includes:
- Dissecting dorsal root ganglia out of mouse spinal cords
- Culturing neurons
- Transfecting DNA into neurons
- Using confocal microscopy to image the neurons
- (If time permits) patch clamping neurons and recording their activity
I asked for a wet lab,
I got a damn wet lab all right. When one of the post-docs took me on a tour around the lab, he showed me the old electrophysiology rig that Alan Hodgkin used! Craaaazy. I must admit that I feel a bit anxious though. Based on my conversation with Dr. McNaughton, it seems he is holding me to high intellectual and technical standards, which makes me worry that he might think me too dull later on.
...I hope I can meet his standards?
