In This Post I… Work on my Research

Previously… AKA Last Week

Last week, after my Laboratory Animal Science course wrapped up, I finally met with Vladimir, my research supervisor. He returned from his conference in Brazil and had been quite busy that week writing grant proposals for the lab! The Neurovascular Signaling Group at Aarhus University runs many experiments at a time, primarily working with mice models and human cerebrovascular (brain blood vessel) tissue to analyze receptors on the walls of arteries as well as pathways in the brain that regulate blood flow following a stroke.

The group has affiliations with research companies in Denmark, as well as several European research organizations such as the Scandinavian Physiological Society. As a result, members of my lab get to travel all around Europe presenting at conferences and learning techniques from other labs!

Last Friday I attended my first lab group meeting, where a lot of information was thrown at me! By the end of the meeting I had become a member of the Danish Cardiovascular Academy and the Scandinavian Physiological Society, and also had plans to attend several conferences in Denmark and one in Frankfurt, Germany.

After the meeting, I started work on my research, reading through some papers that Vladimir had sent me to get an idea of current experiments in the field. I spent most of the day conducting a “literature review” which basically means I wrote up a document describing all of the current research and gaps in knowledge in the field. My lab group works closely with another group in England, so I’m hoping that my research will take me there at some point!

Monday

Yesterday I learned how to use a myograph. After I expressed interest to Vladimir about working with human cerebrovascular tissue, he added me to an ongoing experiment on smooth muscle cell receptors found in neuroglial blastomas (basically, we are looking to see if arteries found in brain tumors have a special type of receptor that makes them more likely to contract in certain environments). This project is doubly exciting for me as the first paper I read by a Danish neuroscience lab (ages and ages ago) was about the prevalence of neuroglial blastomas in the population.

Working with a medical student in the research group, I learned to dissect vessels from tumor samples that had arrived from the hospital that morning. I then practiced setting up the myograph, which involved threading tiny wires through an apparatus underneath a microscope. It was very surgical and required a lot of precision! I think I’ll need to go easy on the free coffee on days where I have to prepare these samples.

After that, we actually ran the myograph, testing the contractile force exerted by the vessel under different conditions. In the end, we did find a slight increase in contractility after targeting the specific channel we were looking for. The results were not as distinct and dramatic as we had hoped, but certainly a positive sign!

Also on Monday, I brought my cinnamon apple muffins in to share with everyone, and they were a big hit! People I hadn’t even met before came up to me to inquire after the muffins, and one of the lab technicians even promised to bring me apples from her garden for my future baking! I think it ended up being a great way to meet people and get more involved in lab culture.

Tuesday

Today, I had my physiology course on the exercise campus at 10, so my day started there. I’m finally settling into the course, and I’ve even met a few of the other students. I am the only non-Danish student in the class, which I actually think is quite fun. Although the course is being taught in English (thank god), every now and then I learn a new Danish word when the professor can’t remember the English translation. I’ve also been called upon to help pronounce a few English words. Recently, I had to say “proportionality” in front of the whole class. LOL

I then biked to my lab building and met with Vladimir and Line (pronounced Lee-neh). Line has just finished her PhD and is staying in the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. We went over the protocol for my main project. First I will be testing how the concentration of oxygen given to the mice during anesthesia affects their post-stroke outcome (wellbeing). This will help me decide what oxygen concentration to use later in my research and will also likely lead to an abstract which will be submitted to a conference closer to December.

My primary project, which will begin later this fall, will involve an imaging technique called Laser Speckle Contrast. This technique allows me to image localized blood flow in a living mouse brain, immediately after I create a lesion in the brain, mimicking a stroke. This lesion can be created a number of ways, either by inserting a filament to block the carotid artery (big one in the neck), by using a surgical tool to pinch the middle cerebral artery and block blood flow, or my favorite technique, shooting a vessel with a laser.

With this project, I hope to understand the role that chloride channels play in regulating blood flow following a stroke. In order to do this, I will have normal, healthy mice, called wild-type mice, as well as mice that are missing important receptors in their brain, called knockout mice because the genes encoding the receptor have been “knocked out.”

I am incredibly excited to begin working on my project! I have been enjoying the routine that my time in the lab has brought to my schedule, and getting to know my coworkers each day has been so much fun. Everyone here is very dedicated to their work, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be a part of the group.

Just so you guys don’t think everything is all sunshine and rainbows here in Denmark, I will say that I’m getting REALLY sick of all the stairs I have to take! People here are very anti-elevator, so every day after I finish my 3 mile bike ride to work I climb four flights of stairs. Then I go down four flights of stairs to get coffee, then I go up four flights of stairs back to my desk, then I go down four flights of stairs to get lunch… you get the point. Anyways, my apple watch is super happy with all the exercise I’ve done since coming here, but my quads and calves are not so happy…

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Image Descriptions
1. The view of the harbor from my lab
2. My mug with the others in the lab kitchen
3. The myography “MYO” lab
4. A Danish “meme” in my lab that reads: If I do not drink coffee, I am tired all day.
If I drink coffee, I am still tired all day, but in a faster way.
5. The view from the window by my desk