This last week was SO hectic- but we made it. I handed in my poster on Tuesday morning after many editing sessions to catch the smallest errors that I had gone blind to. After I handed in my poster I felt a huge feeling of relief. It came out really well and I'm truly so proud of all the work I accomplished to get as far as I did in the program. I spent the remainder of Tuesday re-slicing the best blocks at 60 nanometers for TEM. putting the small slices on tiny TEM grids was so precarious, but it definitely paid off once I got to Eugene. Main campus was so pretty! The TEM is stationed in CAMCOR, UO's super technologically advanced underground scientific bunker that's cleaned with blue light. Walking through CAMCOR felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. TEM was successful and I was able to snag a few images of Alviniconcha testis. After successful imaging, the grad students walked us around campus and we went out to get food in Eugene. It was overall a really fun and successful day. Pictures below! The poster session wasn't as scary as I was expecting- then again I think my brain was just burnt out so I'm not sure I was able to feel intimidated anymore. People asked good questions, I answered well, and I got to show off snail gonads. Oh!... and Lisa and Debby made cookies. All in all, quite the success. Here is my poster! Sitting here writing this, I'm having a hard time believing the program is over. It's hard to put into words what this program meant to me. I met so many amazing people. I gained such invaluable confidence in my research. I bonded with Lauren, Caitlin, and Avery over all the little things. I'm going to miss so many little things. Walking to Bayside Coffee, OG, and Millers for some snacks and sweet treats. Laying on the jetty with Cat and Ytxzae counting down the days until we go home. Picking wild blackberries behind the dining hall for way too long. Watching movies and making charcuterie boards. Jumping in the freezing pacific, screaming, and then laughing. Watching fog roll in from the bay and saying "it's so twilight (2007) out." Hearing everyone snore because the walls don't go to the ceilings. Spontaneously flying to San Francisco for the weekend. Hearing the bell ring for every meal. Saying goodnight to my friends anxious and excited for the next day. I think OIMB encompasses all the little things anyone could want.
So, if you are reading this and wondering if you should apply to this REU, don't think twice. You wont get an experience like this anywhere else. Coming from NJ, I wasn't too excited to travel so far from home and not see any of my friends all summer. Don't think like me. The distance is worth it. The stressful lab days are worth it. It wont be an easy goodbye and being a 2 minute walk to the water was something I took for granted. There truly isn't a place on earth like Charleston. Until next time :)
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It feels surreal that next week is the last week of the program. Time has flown but it has also felt like I've been here forever. To no ones surprise, I spent the past weekend working on my poster and making progress before Wednesday's poster critique. Monday through Wednesday I spent 8 hours a day looking at a computer screen, writing, and rewriting. After this experience, I've learned that posters are a lot harder to make than they look. Hours of moving pictures slightly to the right to align them, fiddling with the line spacing, and adding arrows to photos takes much longer than it appears. Either way, my poster critique on Wednesday went better than I could've imagined. I got some great feedback from Richard, Maya, Nicole, and the other REU students. Everyone's suggestions were super helpful and I was able to make changes to my poster later in the week. As I am writing this, I just submitted my edited poster for review. If there arent any issues, it's my final submission! This next week (and last) is going to be insanely packed and (in my opinion) the coolest of them all. To break it down: Monday: I will be cutting more blocks of Ifremeria gonad and brood pouch to see which blocks have the best gonad sections. Later in the day I will be heading to my mentor Craig Young's house to have a potluck. Tuesday: I will be re-cutting the best blocks of Ifremeria and Alviniconcha from Monday with a DIAMOND knife (I don't even know how this is real life) to prep for TEM Wednesday: The Young Lab is heading up to the main campus in Eugene (~2.5 hrs from campus) to do TEM (transmission electron microscopy) to image bacteria in the gonads of Ifremeria and Alviniconcha. Thursday: Wrap up lab work and prep for the poster session Friday: Have the poster session, say goodbye to the grad students, and pack my suitcase Little video below about my favorite clips from the summer so far! Also, an IMAX production crew is filming a movie about the Young Lab and their next cruise about deep-sea larva with a focus on women in science. In simpler terms, a camera man will be in the lab filming B roll for the movie, joining us in Eugene to film the TEM process, and interviewing me and Ytxzae for the film. If you need to speak to me, you'll have to contact my manager first or set up a meeting with my assistant - I might be too busy prepping for the Oscars. See you all in theaters 2024!
Wow, 2 weeks left! This past weekend was lots of fun. Me, Cat, and Ytxzae went out to dinner on Saturday and saw the new Elvis movie. We also went surfing, made a charucterie board (a legit one this time), and chilled by the beach. The rest of the weekend was spent resting and working on posters. It was nice having time to recuperate after such a long work week. With such little time left to gather data, take images of Alviniconcha gonads, and piece together my poster, I'm definitely feeling the pressure. I've had lots of successes and also failures this week. Monday I found out that my staining method wasn't sufficient and I would have to re-slice all 9 of my blocks, re-stain the cuttings, permount, and take images of all my specimens. Overwhelmed and not sure I would finish my poster in time, I did what any lost college student would do - I called my mom. Thankfully, she acted as my voice of reason and gave me the motivation I needed to finish. That night I came in after dinner, blasted music on my headphones, and got to work. Thanks to the buttery voice of Harry Styles (and some nostalgic One Direction) I was able to slice, stain, and permount 18 slides in one night. The rest of this week was spent imaging, color correcting, and adding scale bars to my pictures. I have yet to choose the best images for my poster, but I will chose them by Monday. Overall, I am finishing this week much happier and less stressed than it started. This weekend the REUs are presenting our projects at the CMLC (Charleston Marine Life Center) to practice communicating science to a broader audience. Ytxzae and I will be giving clay to students to model Warens Larvae, and some Alviniconcha shells to feel the cool bristles. Other than that, I will be spending this week working on my poster for the critique this coming Wednesday. I'm nervous, but hopefully it goes well. See you next week!
I'm not sure words can even describe this past weekend. Once I landed in San Francisco, Cat and her family showed me and Ytxzae around all the best spots and took me on a ferry to see Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bride, and the city from the water. The next day we celebrated Cat's moms birthday and ate some amazing food, listened to great music, and I tried In-n-Out burger for the first time and even got a hat to prove it. To summarize our time spent in California, we spent most of our time eating wild grapes, sweating, drinking boba, and laughing. The road trip from San Jose to Coos Bay was long (10ish hours) but so scenic but a relatively easy drive. We saw wine country, the Redwoods, and even stopped at a sandwich place called "Hole in the Wall" and ate among the foggy county of Humboldt. Given how amazing the short vacation was, I'm so grateful I was able to visit California and knock it off my bucket list. This week in the lab I (thankfully) hit the ground running with my new, spectacular, stunning, gorgeous, breathtaking glass knives. Once I sliced my first specimen with the new knives my jaw quite literally dropped. I didn't realize how used and nicked the knives I had been using were until I saw how beautifully uniform and clear the sections came out. I usually start my morning off slicing, and then spend the afternoon doing a preliminary microscope scan to see if the slide is usable (aka if I did a good job or not slicing). So far, I have sliced specimen 1-10 and I am hoping to get through specimen 11-18 before Friday so I have more than enough time to identify structures, take and photo correct images, and pull the best ones for my poster. With a little less than 3.5 weeks remaining and 14 in lab working days until the poster is due, I am starting to feel the pressure to finish strong. Pictures below of my work! This weekend I will likely work on my poster for the draft due Tuesday. I also may try to venture out to the movie theater to see the new Elvis movie. Even though I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about how much time I have to finish everything, I don't think there's anything movie popcorn and a sweet-treat can't fix. See ya next week!
This weekend was super relaxing and productive! Me and a few REU's went out to get sushi and explore the Coos Bay food scene- overall everyone agreed that it definitely hit the spot. We also have gotten in the pattern of watching movies while splitting a pre-made charcuterie board from Fred Meyers for a whopping $7.99. Although it doesn't sound too glamorous, it's one of my favorite activities to do after a long day of ultramicrotomy. We also recently got more pictures from the RV Pluteus trip- those and more images from this weekend below! This week in the lab has been chaotic to say the least. Five new OIMB undergrads have joined our lab to help the graduate students with their respective projects, so needless to say it's been a bit busier than previous weeks. After looking at my cuttings on the ultramicrotome and learning that the glass knives I was using were all previously used and many years old, we figured it would be time to get new ones. Thanks to people in Eugene, glass knives are being shipped to us as we speak. I'm excited to get them and to start cutting blocks of resin again while making more progress on my poster. Having no knives this week has been a bit of a setback since I've lost 5 days of ultramicrotome work, but I'm optimistic they will get here soon and I can get into the groove of slicing my specimen early next week. The rest of this week was spent accompanying Ytxzae on the SEM and taking images of the Ifremeria nautilei larva at all stages of development. Now that we've separated to focus on our own projects, it was nice to see what he has been working on while I've been in the ultramicrotomy room.
Although the program directors warned us this program would fly by, this past week really felt like the blink of an eye. It's hard to believe we only have 4 weeks left here, and only 3 weeks left with the UO students. Even though it feels like I just got here, I can't imagine how weird it will be to say goodbye to the campus and the friends I've made here. Anyway, this weekend is going to be SO fun. Me and two other REU's decided to make the spontaneous trip to San Francisco and San Jose where Cat lives. It's her mom's birthday this weekend, so lots of celebration in store. I've never been to California, so I'm looking forward to seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, soaking up the much needed sun, and seeing if In-n-Out Burger really lives up to the hype. See you next week! This past weekend was so much fun! The REUs went out on the RV Pluteus and dredged up some very cool inverts! Even though a few of us got seasick (me included), I think the trip was worth it. I also celebrated my 21st birthday by spending the morning at the beach and taking an afternoon trip into downtown Coos bay to get some birthday free-bees from Starbucks and Dutch Bros. Later in the day I ate some delicious food at Seven Devils Alehouse for dinner. The highlight of my birthday was definitely when my college roommate, Maggie, tracked my location, found and called the restaurant I was eating at (all the way from Massachusetts!) and asked to cover drinks and dessert! Needless to say, it was such a special birthday and I most definitely felt the love all the way from the east coast. After 4 weeks, I feel like I'm getting into my own groove! Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I focused on cutting, dehydrating, and embedding 10 more samples in Spurrs resin. By doing this resin "mise en place" I will be able to focus on slicing, staining, and imaging slides the rest of the summer! I had a big win earlier in the week regarding a methods problem we were facing with the ultramicrotome: getting the sliced resin to stick to our slides. We found that placing the sliced resin on a hot plate for 15 minutes to fully dry the samples, letting the slide rest at room temp for 40 seconds, placing the stain on the slide, and rinsing it under water created usable sections! Although it was a temperamental methods process to figure out, I'm glad I wont be seeing sliced resin sections pop off the slide and go down the drain any longer. Wednesday afternoon I sliced my very first sample of Ifremeria. With how much work went into collecting the snails, shipping them to OIMB, fixing them in chemicals, and resin embedding, I was quite nervous to start slicing. Although I was scared, the slices looked great! As of now, I am having trouble with the slices folding and creating a "3D-like" effect on the slides. To properly view slides, the sections need to be flat so every part of the cutting is on the same plane and the microscope can focus the entire cutting, not just bits and pieces. Hopefully I can fix this issue with some method testing. This weekend seems like it will be chill and quiet as there isn't a REU trip planned. Perhaps I will get ahead on some presentation making, go into downtown Coos bay to get some good eats, and work on social media content for Dags Hockey, my Dads hockey training business. See you next week!
This past weekend was great! A few REU students and I ventured into downtown Coos Bay and got much-needed groceries and sweet treats from Fred Meyers. While downtown, I got to try Dutch Bros, a west-coast coffee chain that I've been dying to try since flying out. Seeing as though Dutch Bros is drive-through only (and we did not have a car), we quite literally stood between cars to wait in line. As a coffee lover and barista- I give it a 10/10. On Monday, Lisa, Debby, and the rest of the OIMB dining hall staff made the most beautiful spread of food to celebrate the 4th. Thanks to Maya and her grilling expertise, I tried my first oyster! When you smother them in lemon and garlic butter sauce, it's hard not to like them. A few of us went down to the OIMB beach after the picnic to lay in the sun, talk on the jetty, and watch Catalina bravely swim in the coldest water ever. Although proposal drafts were due this week, we made sure to have some fun in between writing and peer-reviewing. Earlier this week in the lab we focused on our individual projects meaning I got more familiar with the ultramicrotome. To start, I successfully attached a water boat to the glass knife using blue Sally Hansen nail polish (which is a lot more precarious than it sounds) and leveled the knife in the knife holder. I practiced making slices on the ultramicrotome with a resin block and -to my relief- they turned out great! The next steps for method trouble-shooting are to stain the samples and permanently enclose the cuttings under coverslips using permount. Once we figure out how to do those steps successfully, I can start going through the actual samples I need to image. Later in the week, I focused on exposing the snail gonad samples to increasing concentrations of Spurrs resin. To do so, I started by cutting individual gonad tissue samples belonging to species of Ifremeria, A. strummeri, A. boucheti, and A. kojimai in half. I cut the tissue in half so we had two pieces of gonad to work with in case our resin test went south. I then put the cut pieces through a dehydration series of increasing ethanol concentrations (95%, 100%, 100%) to fully get rid of any water present. After that, I mixed up the Spurrs resin (which requires four different liquid chemicals) and diluted three batches (1:2, 1:1, 3:1 Spurrs to ethanol) to place the tissues through an infiltration series. Each of these steps takes anywhere from 3 to 12 hours, so in total it's a 2-day process. This Saturday the REU crew is going out on OIMB's boat, the RV Pluteus, and dredging up invertebrates that live on the bottom of the sea floor. I'm excited to get my hands dirty and do some field work! Excitingly enough, my birthday is Sunday! I'm not too sure what I'll do yet, but I'm seeing some pretty promising weather so I'll likely hang out on the beach, read, and celebrate. See you next week!
Camping was amazing! We stayed at a campsite perfectly situated between the forest, beach, and beautiful hiking spots. We completed a 4-mile hike around the coast of Cape Arago, saw a whale in the distance, and ate amazing sandwiches while watching the seals duke it out on the rocks below. Afterwards, we enjoyed a hot and sunny beach day filled with tide pooling, rock climbing, and spike ball. Pictures below! This week in the lab, we learned how to utilize the ultramicrotome, which is basically a teeny-tiny deli meat slicer. Lauren Rice (Young lab PhD candidate) gave us a step-by-step on how to prepare the knife, use the intricate levers, and shave the resin block into a perfect square to make the slicing more precise. The machine we work with cuts at 300 nanometers (a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick; imagine 333 times thinner than that!). Next, we looked at pictures of the hydrothermal vents our samples were collected from. In comparison to the Ifremeria, it was easier to see that the Alviniconcha have gold tips at the end of their shell, are more mustard-colored, and are extra furry-looking. Later in the week, we worked on the SEM with Avery (Young lab Masters candidate) and started transferring our first round of dehydrated snail shell bits onto stubs. To do this, we attached special tape onto the stubs to make the surface sticky. Then, we carefully attached the specimen to the stub. We made one stub for 4 species of snails: A. kojimai, A. boucheti, A. strummeri, and Ifremeria. After all the spines were attached to stubs, we brought the samples to the sputter coater. Here, a machine coats the sample in an atom-thick layer of gold using argon gas. My favorite part about this week was the spontaneous trip Ytxzae and I took to Newport. Along with our mentor, Craig Young, we travelled two hours north to pick up a part for OIMB's recently broken ROV. We saw breathtaking beaches during the journey and talked about Oregon history, our hometowns, favorite movies, and most importantly - the best types of cheese. Also, we went tide pooling and had the chance to look at remarkable creatures hiding along the coast. Lastly, my favorite activity this week was taking a sunset walk to decompress after a long day of ultramicrotome and SEM processing. We took a stroll on OIMB Beach and sat on the jetty, watching the ships roll in as the sun slowly disappeared behind the clouds. I made a little video below! Ignore the "California" lyric - the song is just too good not to use. See you next week! Hi there! My name is Flynn Gorman I was born and raised in New Jersey. I grew up as a middle child playing ice hockey on and off growing up. With two brothers that played and a hockey coach for a Dad, I don't think I picked the sport- it kind of picked me. I always loved singing and being creative in the kitchen, so once I got to Trinity College, I auditioned for Quirks A Cappella and applied to work at the Underground Coffeehouse, a student managed and run coffee shop on campus. I've been involved in these organizations for the entirety of my college career, and I now act as the PR Director for the Quirks and the Creative Director of the UG. Once I figured out I wasn't as passionate about the medical field as I thought, I focused my academics on taking classes that truly interested me like Invertebrate Zoology and Animal Physiology. Eventually, I landed a spot in the Freshwater Invertebrate lab on campus under the mentorship of Dr. Benjamin Toscano in which I truly got a look into the research and the data collection process. Despite learning interesting ecological topics and gaining invaluable laboratory knowledge, I was missing the marine aspect of my research. With a lot of support from Dr. Claire Fournier, Dr. Ben Toscano, Dr. Kent Dunlap, and my roommates Maggie and Eleanor for reading my many (many) REU application essays at ungodly hours of the night- I was offered a position here at OIMB! Despite being here for just a week, the program has already exceeded my expectations. In just 5 days I explored the Coos Bay forest, walked along the OIMB beach, navigated Charleston, went thrift shopping for blankets, got coffee and pizza from the local shops, and got to know the other REU interns. We also had a really nice picnic and were able to meet our mentors, cruise around the tide pools, and lay on the beach. My research this summer will be focusing on looking at two deep-sea hydrothermal vent Gastropods, Ifremeria nautilei and Alviniconcha. This summer, I will be setting the reproductive structures of Ifremeria in Spurr's resin and using an ultramicrotome to make very thin slices of its ovary/testis to investigate what makes up the reproductive tissue, if there are any bacteria present that aid in reproduction, and if the reproductive structures differ between our two gastropods. In addition, we will also be using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to look at the periostracal bristles of Alviniconcha to get a better look at the hair-like structures on the outside of their shell, as well as imaging unidentified larvae. One of my favorite days on campus so far was this past Thursday when I was taught how to use a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to focus and take pictures of samples of larvae. After that, the Young Lab graduate students gave us a tour of the Charleston Marine Life Center which is basically a marine museum across the street filled with all sorts of cool things from Charleston and OIMB. Pictures Below! This weekend we are going camping for two nights at Sunset Bay State Park and hiking along the coast. I’m excited to see more of the forest and coastline! See you next week! |
AuthorHello! My name is Flynn Gorman and I am working in the Young Lab and studying the embryology of the gastropods Ifremeria nautilei and Alviniconcha this summer. I am from New Jersey and I am pursuing a B.S. in Biology at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. I also work at a coffee shop on campus and act as the PR Director for my acapella group. Archives
August 2022
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