Blogs

This is my first time doing research internship. I’m working with Matthew Jones this summer who is out in the Black Sea for the first two weeks and a half. However I’m not alone. In this situation email come in handy. We email each other for updates and questions. Plus I got a lot of help from all the people who work in the lab. This week  I did a lot of practice with leucoberbelin blue (LBB) protocol to build a calibration curve, and grew some bacteria with help from Christine. Other people in the lab also helped me and showed me where things were placed.

For the first week of my internship I read a lot of articles from the environmental/chemistry/biochemistry literature to find out what I could about electron transport systems (ETS). It was an interesting experience, trying to piece together this picture of what an electron transport system is and how it relates to possible fields of research. After a week of researching I presented what I'd found to Dr. Tratnyek and the other students/interns on his team. Hopefully Dr.

Hi everyone, it's been a while!  I am so excited to be back in Peter Zuber's lab, it's amazing to think this will be m third summer here!  I remember starting out the summer after my sophomore year and ... can you believe it, I just finished my first year of college.  Time flies by and through it all, I've still held a special place in my heart for research and Peter's lab.  It's nice to know that I've found my calling and I hope to be here for many more summers.

After getting a tour of the building and meeting all the new interns, I went for coffee with Lydie Herfort to talk about what had been done with the ESP column samples and the soil samples since my visit this spring. We went over some slides and graphs that she had recently made of the sampling times of the ESP and we decided that I should first start on extracting DNA from the recently collected soil samples. Using the FastDNA Spin kit, which I had not used before, Lydie and I extracted the first two samples together to make sure I didn't have any problems using this particular kit .

The 2013 Undergraduate Interns are here and ready for a summer of science! They come from colleges around the U.S. including Heritage University, Auburn University, Texas Tech University, Williams College, Washington State University, Lewis and Clark College, Oregon State University, Pacific University, and Portland State University. (Looks like in all the excitement that Rachel Tullsen, in pink top, and Maria Nunez, in black top, got their faces hidden.) See individual photos of each intern and learn more about their research projects→

        The picture on the left shows Chlorella vulgaris and Asterionella formosa cultures growing in our cold room. Two different    contaminant experiments are taking place in these flasks. In one of them we have added the plasticizer Bisphenol A (BPA) to the growth medium and in the other one we have added the detergent by-product 4-para-Nonylphenol (NP).

Tuesday: Continued reading the 7th annual report, had about a 1-hour meeting with mentor, Charles Seaton, about preparing for the final paper and poster. Then, we covered the background of CMOP that was specific to my project. Eventually, started reading in the Appendix E: 2011 CMOP Integrated Research Plan.

I have finished my first week, I am doing extensive lit review and I must say that I have already learned alot about the program.

CMOP completed a week of support for the "Mouth of the Columbia River Experiment" funded by the Office of Naval Research. The SATURN collaboratory provided scientists with daily forecasts and real-time data from sensors at several observation stations in the estuary. Craig McNeil and his team from APL-UW conducted studies with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV).

McNeil's team sent the AUV through the mouth of the Columbia River on several ebb tides to study currents and mixing, identify oceanographic features (liftoff point, internal waves, eddies/rolls/boils), and suspended sediment distributions. I went out with the them to capture the action as the AUV was retrieved from Columbia River Bar. Not the easiest task to perform on the ocean. The video is to let you experience how intense it can get retrieving a hugely expensive piece of scientific gear.

Want to know more about about AUVs? Read an article I wrote titled Underwater Robotics Succeed In Unlikely Place

Congratulations to Michelle Maier and Rachel Golda from CMOP on their awards for Best Poster Presentations at OHSU's Research Week 2013.

Michelle is a Ph.D. student studying environmental science in the lab of Dr. Tawnya Peterson. She presented her research into quantifying the contribution of zoosporic fungi to the aquatic food web.

Rachel is a Ph.D. student studying environmental science in the lab of Dr. Joe Needoba. The poster featured her work on elucidating the role of ocean acidification estuarine plankton bloom phenology.

View list of OHSU Researh Week winners