Hello everyone! My name's Allie Stashko and I'll be a senior next year at Chapel Hill High. This summer I'm working with Dr. Markert in the Thymus Transplantation Lab. The thymus is where your T-cells in your blood come from. Babies with complete DiGeorge Syndrome are born with no thymus, and thus have no way to fight off infection. This is the only lab that does this transplant surgery, so the patients come from all across the world. Patients who have had a successful transplant continue to send back blood samples periodically to make sure everything is in check and for research.
Most of the procedures in the lab involve human blood and tissue, so I'm not allowed to handle any of it. Instead this summer I'll be doing a lot of data analysis and going back through old patient records for studies. For the first couple of days Dr. Markert spent time teaching an undergrad in the lab and me how to read and interpret flow charts. Flow cytometry is basically a way of finding out and quantifying the different types of cells in a sample. I learned some of the different assays they use to check on the levels of lymphocites and the surface proteins and antibodies that go with each type of cell. At first it was a lot to keep track of and I was constantly going back to my notes but it's getting easier and easier to recognize the types of cells by the antibodies they go with.
Today was the first day that I was able to start my project. The project involves going through old patients' flow charts to see if CD56+hi (a type of NK cell) exist pre transplant in patients and how the levels compare to post transplant and in control blood samples. Although this involves a lot of excel and photocopying, it's still very interesting and helps me to get a better understanding of what all the tiny little dots on a flow chart really mean.
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Even though your project doesn't incorporate much bench work, it still sounds very interesting. It's very cool that you'll be able to understand more about blood and the immune system by the end of the summer. Good job this first week!
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