At my mentorship, I was given the opportunity to do research on prostate cancer and culture cancer cells. I also worked with the lab technician to scan tumors with and without gold nanoparticles in rats and mice using CT/PET scans, and we reconstructed the images together. In addition, I learned correct lab technique, such as proper micro-pipetting form in order to preserve the sterility of the lab.
Through my mentorship, I also learned how to make liposomes. Liposomes can be filled with drugs and they can be delivered to treat cancer and other diseases, although they are not a cure. They can be prepared by disrupting biological membranes (using processes such as sonication/extrusion/homogenization). Liposomes are made of a phospholipid bilayer (hydrophilic head on the outside and a hydrophobic tail inside) because they are amphipathic and in the project, we got to the point where we could control/reduce the size of the random liposomes and make it unilamellar inside, instead of multilamellar through the process of extrusion. In extrusion, one puts the liposomes through filters, beginning with a larger filter first, and then gradually getting to the smaller ones, to make it more uniform, unilamellar, and to reduce the size of the liposomes. In this process, we also made the liposome solution into a solid, dry film, and then hydrated it, to make it another solution. We ultracentrifuged the tubes with the mixture of the liposomes and liquid (PBS – phosphate buffer saline used, because we need to keep the isotonicity of the cell so that it doesn’t shrink or burst) several times through, to clean the liposomes. Typically, this process is done three times. To redisperse the liposomes after centrifugation, we used the ultrasound bath, and if this didn’t work well enough to disperse the liposomes a vortex was used instead. This cleansing process is done to make sure that there is no extra aqueous solution/drug outside the liposomes, only inside it.
Another aspect of my mentorship was culturing cancer cells. You can tell when cells are “happy” and “unhappy”, because if they are happy, they look fairly uniform and grow the way they normally do. Every cell line grows differently, so you have to look into how that particular cell line is supposed to grow. Every time you “passage” a cell line, you change it to a new flask, and sometimes, this passaging will alter the growth of the cells themselves.
I really enjoyed my mentorship because it tied together information I was learning in the classroom and allowed me to apply it to real projects. One specific example of this was learning about ELISA in my endocrinology class and applying it in the lab. Another interesting thing I learned in my lab was how to use the various machines that measure information like zeta potential and absorbance. I highly recommend other students to try a mentorship, because it opens one’s mind to possibilities and potential interests in various fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
