This past Wednesday we received 100 TL fish, 50 males and 50 females!

We can begin redoing our gene expression experiments, being careful not to make anymore mistakes. Before winter break, I hope to have finished dosing, extracting RNA, making cDNA, and having run qPCR on our embryos dosed at 2, 48, and 96 hours post fertilization. As a reminder I’m dosing embryos with tert-butyl hydroperoxide, or tBOOH, which is a short chain lipid hydro-peroxide.

Like Nick’s past month, it would be an understatement to call this month hectic. Our introductions for thesis are due pretty soon, as well as many final papers for other classes before final exams. To top it all off, my thesis presentation for the biochem department is looming over my head. With careful planning and preparation, however, nothing is insurmountable. Nick, Sophie, and I are currently peer editing one another’s thesis introduction drafts before we hand them to Larissa, and they will likely be in their final stages after this initial peer edit. Larissa has prepared us well for the stress, and the biochem presentation coming this Tuesday parallels the presentation Larissa asked us to give for our weekly lab meetings a little while ago. While I feel well prepared to present on Tuesday, I’ll also be going through my presentation with Larissa once more before Tuesday’s event. At this point in the semester we are confident with the techniques we’ve learned in Larissa’s lab, and we are keen to begin generating data. The thesis experience has already made me a more confident scientist, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to have such an experience.