Week 5 - Revisiting my research goals

This week was a slow one as we all recovered from the 4th of July break. There weren't many surgeries at all this time around, although as a result I have started to work more on the research side of things. 

On Tuesday, I began to revamp my project as a result of some difficulties I had initially getting materials into the lab and finding instrumentation. Instead of synthesizing the preliminary drug-linker compound as intended, I will try to optimize the antibody conjugation step instead using SDS-PAGE. The past few days I have been creating a protocol that will help me do that. I will be using Cam-003, a few Mal-PEG-NHS compounds, and Traut's reagent to modify the lysines on Cam-003. In the meantime, I have been clearing some of the materials with the inventory manager in the lab and should hope to start running gels by Monday. 

On Wednesday, I had the amazing opportunity to meet the Executive Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and discuss cross-institutional collaboration. It was a very insightful meeting, and I'm grateful to have made a connection that will definitely benefit my research career in the near future. The following day I was able to receive additional microbiology training in the Westblade lab, and answer some leftover questions I had about clinical protocols. On Friday, I was able to attend plate rounds in the mycology lab with some of the Infectious Disease fellows. There, I saw them handle tough cases and draw conclusions about various strains pathogenic bacteria based on patient history, morphology, and finally, MALDI identification.

Next week, I look forward to attending the ID Case Conference and starting experiments to supplement the research I've been doing in the lab!

- Taylor 



Several strains of Pathogenic Yeast on CHROMagar.

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