Wow, my summer experience came to an exciting conclusion on Monday with our necropsies of 18 chickens in the homeostatic group of our ovarian cancer study.  I can’t say it was particularly pleasant putting the chickens down (I respectfully declined to actually do said act), but the professors leading the necropsies were extremely instructional and made sure that I understood every part of what we were looking at and also informed me of a lot of background information.  This last day was a look at the “other side” of the study I participated in.  Most of time was spent in the lab analyzing samples of glycans trying to determine the best way to study them.  Eventually those determined procedures will hopefully be critical in determining which, if any, glycans can be used as biomarkers for ovarian cancer.  The chickens, of course, are our animal models, and in order to study the possible biomarkers, we need chickens with cancer.  It felt strange that we were all so hopeful that some of the birds had cancer, but we quickly got over that when we realized that at least 5 of them did.

I know that I will take all of the aspects of my study with me into the classroom this year and beyond.  I have made arrangements with my mentor to continue my relationship with him and his team and I truly feel like I am part of a new team.  I am going to use this great experience as a springboard for even bigger things.