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Echinoderms and worms galore

Embryology Class of 2015 kicked off as a crash course in bringing the art of learning to a whole new level. Personally-speaking, I've never had to process so much new information before in such a short span of time (prior to this I considered the cramming, for a final exam, of a whole year's worth of Immunology that I slept through during undergrad as the 'threshold') . We started off easy by learning each others' names and areas of research, and then plunge right into the world of echinoderms in the form of sea urchins and sea stars, followed by the humble-but-mighty nematode worm C. elegans. With an absolutely fantastic team of faculty members and TAs, the journey thus far as been nothing but tremendously exciting. Given a free reign of an array of reagents as well as a supply of embryos/worms, one can imagine being like Charlie entering Willy Wonka's chocolate factory for the first time...which is exactly what this course is all about.

So, what has Sharkie been up to? Since it is indeed Sharkie writing this after a much needed sleep-in today, here's a little peek into her first week here...

1) Microinjections of sea urchin embryos.

Having spent hours upon hours of microinjecting one-cell stage zebrafish embryos [into the cell!], I thought it'd be quite fun to try injecting sea urchin embryos with a morpholino (heh...heh...) that was available within the module. Take home message, and I'm watching you girls Lucy, Amy and Upeka...we are quite a spoilt bunch! Fish embryo injections are child's play compared to this...

Me hopelessly failing - check out all the crap I managed to get stuck on the needle.

2) Imaging.

Microscopes...everywhere. Having not imaged seriously before (did not have urgent need nor the time to back in Oxford), this was THE opportunity to fiddle around and learn as much as I can. What an opportunity indeed, with an impressive range of microscopes by Zeiss, Leica, Nikon and Olympus, this was the best time to play! For starters I decided to try my hand at the Zeiss 880 and Spinning Disc Confocal. Happy to report I did not break anything (phew!) and got something out of it (much to be improved but one needs to start somewhere, right?).

For some fun on the Zeiss Spinning Disc, here are some embryos dissected out from adults of strains that have germline-driven fluorescent-tagged cellular compartments. I discovered the hard way how easy these guys photobleach...Bah.

Here is a worm that has a pan-neuronal GFP marker, imaged on a Zeiss 880, before and after RNAi of a C.elegans homologue of a gene that shall not be named (a gene Joe Hanly from the University of Cambridge is studying that the worm team has kindly provided RNAi plates for). Oh, and by the way, for this module we were grouped into pairs named after worm phenotypes. Joe and I were Team Dumpy. We were quite pleased to not be Team Uncoordinated, or even Team Multivulva...

Quote of the week

"Whoa, would you look at that anal sphincter!" - Team Dumpy, when we imaged this:

On that note, onwards and upwards to week two of chicks and mice!

Till later,

Sharkie


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