For the time being, I am sitting in the Eugene airport, watching the friends I made leave one by one, and reminiscing on my time at OIMB. This summer was all about living in the now and working towards my future, all while paying homage to my past. If you would’ve shown me three years ago the place I’m at right now, I would’ve fallen over. At the time, I had just lost my dad to a two and a half year long battle with cancer. I was left with no direction, aim, or hope for my future. I was lost. In the two years that followed, I did everything I could to find myself again. I spent so long wondering what, if anything, would make me truly happy to be alive. After countless talks with myself and the friends around me, I ultimately decided to follow my heart and study to become a marine biologist. I was terrified to go back to school but promised myself that I would try my best and promised my dad that I would succeed in that. I am so proud of and grateful to that brave, heartbroken girl! This last week, I have been reminded of the privilege that this internship was for me. I am forever grateful to Craig, Lauren, and Caitlin for mentoring me. They taught me what it means to be a deep sea biologist. I will always look back at my time with them with nothing but affection and appreciation in my heart. I am also in awe of our cohort and how inspiring and cool everyone was. It was such a pleasure to get to know each persons individual personalities and learn from them. The good times we had are what got me through tough lab days. I look forward to seeing them again one day :-) For this time being, I’m not sure where I’m headed, but I know exactly where I am now.
I am an aspiring deep sea biologist with a special love for all creatures weird and unusual. I am a girl who gave herself a second chance. I am happy to be here, now. My world has shifted and my heart is full. Thank you for following along through my various ups and downs! I’ve really enjoyed posting weekly and sharing my little thoughts. If you have any questions or just want to reach out talk, please email me [email protected] Friends, family, and fellow nerds, over and out!
0 Comments
Readers, nerds, and mom, the week is finally here: BRAZIL! We kicked off at 3am last Friday morning and landed in São Paulo on Saturday afternoon. We spent the first weekend there resting, preparing for the week, and exploring the giant Sunday market on Avenida Paulista. We ate traditional Brazilian food, danced to live music, and drank sugar cane juice to our hearts content. Once Monday rolled around, we were ready to take on the week and represent OIMB at the 7th international chemosynthetic based ecosystem symposium. Before I go further, I have to admit that my brain is still wrapping itself around all that happened last week, so this might seem a bit scattered! Each day was packed full of speakers, events, and opportunities to meet other scientists. Luckily, Loie and I had Lauren and Caitlin to introduce us to everyone, which was such a blessing. I know that we both felt pretty shy and intimated by everything, but we were able to quickly warm up with them by our sides. Just within the first two days, I learned so much about Ifremeria and Alviniconcha by listening to all the talks and speaking with researchers at coffee breaks and lunches. About 40% of all talks had to do with those genera in some capacity, which was really cool to hear. By Tuesday night, Loie and I felt ready to present our research at the poster presentations!
We successfully communicated our results to the conference goers, and were offered advice about continuing the project, and were met with compliments on our work. We left feeling absolutely ecstatic and that will always be one of the best days of my life. By the end of the week, we had explored much of São Paulo, gotten to know so many cool researchers, and solidified our love for the deep sea. I am so grateful to my lab mates and mentors for getting Loie and I there. After this week, we are confident that this is what we will do for the rest of our lives. I left CBE7 with a newfound love, adoration, and excitement for marine biology. I can’t wait to see what is waiting for us all in life! For this week, I’m gonna take it back to the basics for a second. Remember my original research question? How I’m looking for the presence of chemosynthetic bacteria in the gonads and brood pouch of Ifremeria nautilei? Well in reading some previous literature, I discovered that this type of bacteria, known as gammaproteobacteria, is actually visible using the 100x setting on a traditional microscope. The point of using the TEM machine was so that we could be able to see very tiny structures, so finding this out was very helpful! After digging more, I found out that the bacteria is also visible using the specific staining method that we use. So, I really scored! The only problem is that there are no photos of this bacteria using histology anywhere… meaning I would have no idea what to look for and no way to confirm that what I was looking at was the symbionts. I had to come up with a way to fix our issue quickly, as we were leaving for Brazil in 5 days and I was supposed to be presenting on this very question. If only there was a way to see this bacteria in a tissue confirmed to contain it in Ifremeria nautilei… DING! The gill filaments of chemosynthetic gastropods house their symbionts and we had literature backing up that up. All we needed to do was dissect a new snail from our collections, set it in osmium tetroxide, dehydrate it in ethanol, set it in spurrs resin, slice it with the microtome, stain the slices, place them on slides, and view them on the microscope! So simple! (Can you sense my sarcasm yet?) Luckily, I have the best lab mates in the universe who dropped everything to help take on this challenge and by Thursday night, we had all of our results! We successfully identified gammaproteobacteria in the gills of Ifremeria nautilei. As soon as I popped the slide under the microscope, I could very clearly see the rod shaped bacteria sitting densely within the cells. I was so happy I screamed and so did Caitlin and Lauren I’m pretty sure. Immediately, I knew that I had never seen those structures before in any of my slides… answering my research question!!! We were confident in the results, but had already planned a trip up to Eugene to view my tissues under the TEM machine so we went there the next day (Wednesday).
That day was a whirlwind within itself, full of amazing technology, cool people, and trial and error. I could spend an eternity in front of a TEM machine with a box of slides and never get bored. But, for the time constraint that we had, I only had about 4 hours. Our gill tissues did not set right so we weren’t able to view them, but were able to view the brood pouch. Again, no evidence of symbionts were detected. This was a huge win! Loie and I then spent the remainder of any free nanosecond that we had working on our poster. I think I slept about 3 hours every night… but it was FUN!!! We had lots of help from Lauren, Caitlin, and Craig and we printed our poster out Thursday night right before the annual invertebrate ball at OIMB and a whopping 8 hours before our flight to the conference. This week was the biggest learning experience for me. My biggest takeaway was that I am fully confident that THIS is what I want to do for the rest of my life. No matter how hard it got, it never really felt like work to me. I am so grateful! Now, after all of that… we went off to Brazil! PS: Did I mention that I chopped off my hair behind the dining hall? :) Week six was a journey for me. The REU’s started off the week with an awesome trip to Eugene, where we stayed at Madison’s house and did as much sight seeing as we could for 36 hours. I really wish I could’ve spent a bit more time there because the weather was beautiful and the city has a lot to offer. We ended the trip with a swim at a local watering hole and then made our way back to our Coos Bay oasis. For me, this trip was the calm before the storm. My preparation for Brazil really took off on Monday! I made the title of this blog “error 404” because that is truly what my brain felt like for the entire week. I was working about 12 hour days and brainstorming non stop about my project. For the symposium, Loie and I split the poster into two parts: Alviniconcha and Ifremeria. I obviously covered Ifremeria so I focused on setting new tissue samples, slicing, staining, and imaging. One of the main questions I focused on this week was to identify all brood pouch and gonad tissues of each individual. After I do that, I go into each slide and work on identifying as many cellular structures possible. At first, the slides just look like a colorful combination of shapes and speckles, but quickly start transforming into complicated and intentional cogs in a giant machine. By researching hundreds of literature pieces, I’m now able to begin really understanding what each structure does for the organism and each of its specific adaptations it might have made for this exact species. Every time I successfully identify a part, it answers questions in my head that end up opening the door for 100 more. I know that for some that this type of work can sound very boring, but for me it has been the most invigorating project. Everyday, I have put my brain to the test and have shown myself that I’m capable of something awesome! All this work has made my head lag a bit behind on everything else, though. I feel like I can’t even have a coherent conversation after a long day in the lab. I think I should probably learn how to balance that out a bit more… but that’s a problem for later!!
Stay tuned for next week :) |
AuthorHi, I’m Tara and I’m a marine biology student at the University of the Virgin Islands. This summer, I will be studying under Dr. Craig Young on a deep sea species of snail. I will be focusing on the reproductive ultrastructure of Ifremeria nautilei . I’m particularly interested in deep sea hydrothermal vent invertebrates and other life in extreme environments. Recently, research on these environments has been used in the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. (How cool is that?!) When I’m not in class, I am working at my university’s mangrove restoration lab as an intern, or assisting in the science 100 class as a peer instructor. Outside of academics, you can find me at the beach with a book in my hands surrounded by my friends. ArchivesCategories |