Thesis is Getting Real.
Wow! It’s hard to believe we are already a quarter of the way through our senior year (and thesis!).
We got back from October break this week, and it seems like a lot of seniors are starting to feel that thesis stress. It’s crazy that some of my friends who are doing half a year thesis have theirs due in about a month!
It’s been another busy week in the Williams lab. Mel and Jason have been working hard at microinjecting and have both had some success injecting morpholinos! Rachel is hard at work trying to figure out her PCR conditions, but is making progress.
I have been busy running western blots. Before break and after break, I found Nfe2 in zebrafish embryos! This is really exciting, as nobody has done it before. Now, I am running a western on a time series of embryos that a past thesis student collected and prepped. We saw Nfe2 now we are able to get a better idea of when it is expressed during development.
Nfe2 expression in zebrafish–each well is a different developmental time point (moving from youngest to oldest)
It’s been slow going, but I feel like I’m finally making some progress and I’m excited to get going on ChIP soon!
At this week’s lab meeting, Jason gave a great presentation on his project, covering background and methods. I really enjoyed hearing about what he’s been up to in lab, and some of the background is useful for helping to put my project into context and to get a better perspective on the larger goals of our lab. I’m looking forward to Rachel’s and Mel’s presentations in the coming weeks!
Lastly, we’ve all been reading and prepping for our intros, which are due in three weeks! It’s kind of scary and stressful, but I’m trying to break it into smaller sections and work on it for a little each day to make it more manageable. I know all the hard work will pay off in the long run, and it will feel great to have a draft written before Thanksgiving.
We’re back from break and thesis is ramping up, but we’re ready for it!