Ok time for the big long thing I did over the summer, the most proud I have ever been of myself in my life thus far. It feels weird being the only scientist in our group now, and this fiasco with Matt has made me realize that even if I don't have ten phds and a billion acres of research land in Australia, at least I have done some cool things with my craft.
Let me preface this by saying that all of this is going to make me seem like a genius. I assure you, I am not. I actually managed to fail calc 1 about three times. I struggle with math every single day, but I refuse to give up. It's opportunities like this that keep me going. Remember that telescope project from the previous year? This is like that on steroids. I also need to say that I'm not actually a student at UCLA, I am an employee. I was paid handsomely for this project, but so was everyone else in my cohort. We are in an Scholars Undergraduate Research program, there are about 12 of us from my school that qualified. We had to take a bunch of classes, buy suits, do mock interviews, they extensively prepared us for our research labs. I will say that as a scholar, I have a 4.0 IF YOU DON'T LOOK AT MY MATH GRADES. SERIOUSLY, LOOK AWAY LEST THEE BE TURNED TO STONE. Luckily for me, I'm fantastic at most everything else academic, and also my skills with reading, writing, and speaking give me a massive advantage because most STEM students can't do any of that at all.
So! I wanted to do Astrophysics, and the lab I originally applied to was called https://gaps1.astro.ucla.edu/gaps/ GAPS. This is a weather balloon they will launch into the atmosphere in Antarctica to search for dark matter. Can you believe it? But no, I wasn't ready for this lab because honestly, I am just not there with my math or physics yet. I cried. Oh, I cried.
THE LAB
So I was placed at the David Geffen School of Medicine in the Orthopedic Research Center. I went in with a BAD attitude, guys. This is not to say I showed it on my exterior, or was rude to anyone of course, but I WAS PISSED. A medical school? But I don't even LIKE PEOPLE, you guys. I've never even taken ANATOMY. I've never even taken BIO. When they told me I had to take a biological science for my degree, I picked fucking Botany. You know why? Because I would rather work with fucking plants than work with people, haha.
I was going to work with an antiparticle dark matter balloon, and now I was going to work with... humans *shudder*However, I really ended up being the luckiest girl in the whole world. Dr. Fabrizio Billi's lab was a great fit for me. Not only were the other student researchers so kind and fun to work with, but they accepted me immediately. Dr. Billi is from Italy and his student researchers are from all over the globe. Every day I would come to lab and walk through the halls, hearing so many different accents and languages. I was the only one who wasn't a med student, lol. With my interest in physics, Dr. Billi found a great project for me.
THE PROJECT
One of the conditions the Billi Lab is currently researching is called Osteolysis. Basically, people will sometimes need a surgical orthopedic joint implant, like the ones I have in my spine only these are in the case of a knee, hip, or shoulder. Due to the nature of a joint bearing, over time, metal-on-metal (MOM) nanoparticles will be released into the joint site leading to a poisoning of the bone and blood called Osteolysis. There is no way to get these nanoparticles out of the patient once they are in there, so the best bet is to prevent the implant from failing in the first place. This is where we come in.
In the past, nanoparticle analysis from MOM wear was always difficult to determine, due to the nature of their nanoscale size and how few of them could be collected. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. It was actually Dr. Billi who came up with the new, industry standard protocol for how scientists the world over accurately measure and analyze their nanoparticles from MOM wear. Orthopedic companies (such as Depuy Synthe, this is the one that I worked on) will take the implant that they have created, stick it in an orbital load simulator, and agitate the simulated synovial fluid with the implant. They will then send us the fluid, and then we analyze it for nanoparticles. This is a three step process:
1.) Spin the fluid down in the centrifuge at 184,000 gs for 4 hours, we obtain at the bottom of the test tube a pellet of particles and proteins.
2.) We are not interested in the proteins, so we need to add solutions that will break apart the proteins and leave us with the particles. We place a silicone wafer coated in a monolayer of marine mussel glue at the bottom of the second test tube, and due to the nature of solutions of varying densities, the proteins will get lost in the denaturant layer while the MOM nanoparticles are heavy enough to pass through it. We spin it down using density centrifugation again, and the particles adhere to the glue on the silicon wafer. We then take the wafer to be analyzed by...
3.) The EDS integrated into the SEM. This is a powerful Scanning Electron Microscope housed at the basement of the CNSI building at UCLA. You (the researcher) shoot a high powered electron beam at the sample, this causes an electron to become ejected from its orbital, hit the detector, and produce an XRay image for you in a gray scale. You tell the computers all of the parameters for which you'd like to set (ours is between 1-5 microns) and the machine will show you all of the particles that fit those preferences. Then, the Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis system will come into play. When the secondary electron becomes ejected, it leaves behind a hole. Other electrons will drop down and replace that hole. This transition releases much energy, energy is directly proportionate to frequency, and each element has its own unique frequency. The machine can then compare it to a library of all the known elements and tell you what your sample is composed of.
So at the end, Dr. Billi sends all of this information I've collected back to Depuy, and we tell them, "hey you assholes, you are leaching cobalt chromium oxide into poor people's bodies, you're going to kill someone you absolute load of buffoons."
And then Dr. Billi gets a trophy. No seriously! He won the John Charnley Award because of inventing this protocol. It's a very prestigious award from the hip society.
For my program, my cohort had to do two presentations about our lab research projects. One was a poster presentation. The other... was a speech that we had to give in a massive lecture hall, it was open to the public, and people were allowed to ask questions. DO YOU KNOW HOW TERRIFYING THAT WAS?! But I did it, and I have never been more proud of myself. I look bitchin in a suit, too.
So this was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I got paid, I got to live on campus, I got to use the UCLA gym and eat at all the yummy places on campus (there's even a Wolfgang Puck, I wish I were lying) and most importantly: I learned that I absolutely love being a scientist, a researcher, and that I am on the right path. I can only image what the universe has in store for me next. :)
Here, have some photos.
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I have a rule about not wearing makeup to lab so, sorry about the no makeup photos. I save that for the presentation days and shock everyone, lol.
Present company excluded, of course. I think you wrote it up well. I could imagine you maybe writing stuff for publishing in pop science journals. You have that knack for explaining stuff for the every man.
I just worry about people overdoing and then not taking care of themselves, because I have a bad habit of doing that.