Week 4 - Emily

This week went well in terms of project and hospital time. I’ve picked out primers that will assess the levels of lung epithelial and mesenchymal markers, as well as transcription factors that are indicative of a cellular transition such as Snail and Slug. Those will be used on the cDNA that I made this week, in conjunction with immunohistochemical staining of lung tissue of the same tumorigenic stages. I’ll be looking for integrity of the epithelial layer and increased expression of mesenchymal markers on the 50+ slides that I created this week from a previous lab member's embedded tissue.
The PCR analysis of the lung tissue is a good starting point, but a bit over-generalized, so I’ll also be conducting an in vitro study with lung cells that I’ll isolate from normal mouse tissue. Then I’ll treat them with tumor-conditioned media and stain them for EMT markers like vimentin or S100A4. I set things up to begin the isolation on Monday.

The hospital was especially interesting this week. I went on rounds with pediatric cardiology on Wednesday, like usual, but I was so intrigued by a few patients that I asked if I could come again later in the week. They were open to my desire to follow-up, so I went again on Friday. I especially wanted to see the results of a particular echocardiogram that was performed on a 2 day old baby to assess for aortic constriction. The doctor I was shadowing this week took 25 minutes to explain to the mother in minute detail the possibilities regarding her daughter’s health. This was of course very informative for me, as were my side conversations with a friendly medical student during rounds. He explained the condition of each patient, helping me translate the medical jargon and abbreviations on the info sheets. During my visit on Friday I found out that the echocardiogram had gone smoothly and the baby girl had been discharged. I'm definitely learning more each time I go, though the overall picture I'm getting of pediatrics (with the babies at least) is more growth = better health. They spend most of the time talking about fluid intake/output, weight gain, and nutrition. That's a side of medicine I haven't seen before!