Day 3 - Researching, researching, and more researching


Today, I had taken a turn from reading grants to some interactive learning in the lab itself.I had gone up to the lab once again, and read a paper on immunology and cancer immunotherapy to brush up my knowledge on what I would be discussing later that afternoon. I went through most of the paper, understanding that it was mostly about how the immune system reacts to cancer in the body, as well as how this research that I am participating in is finding out ways to eliminate and have T cells and B cells deal with that lung and pancreatic specifically.

Later that afternoon, I had gone into the lab and had a discussion about the specific research that I would be participating in tomorrow. The doctor and I had first spoken about the lung and pancreas as whole, even before talking about the cancer specifically. We then went over different parts of the lungs and pancreas, and then we looked at some slides under the microscope to get a real look at the lungs and pancreas of the mice that they were working with actually looked. The slides had been of mice lungs and pancreas that had an increased expression of K-ras in their bodies, which had given them tumors in their lungs that these scientists could then look over and stain to see the effects. 
The doctor had also further explained the paper that I read earlier, so that I would be able to get a better understanding of what I would be working with, on hands on in the lab later.

After this longer discussion, I headed home once again with some more understanding of how things worked in the lab, and the role of immunology and immunotherapy in their research of lung and pancreatic cancer respectively.

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