Summer Comes to a Close

Over the Summer I had the opportunity to work in a medical research lab.  Until then, my lab experience was entirely what is known as "basic science", i.e., science seeking answers for the thrill of it.  Medical research has a much different focus - every development is designed with the end goal of possibly using it as a treatment option.  As such, it tends to move much more quickly, as it relies on basic research done by others.  The primary job of a clinical lab is to optimize the technology.  In our case, we worked extensively with cryoablation of the kidney.  I started off knowing nothing about it, besides that we would use the Joule-Thomson Effect to freeze renal tissue, but ended up learning enough to write a paper (hopefully coming soon) on the subject.  Along with helping to optimize cryoablation for use in patients, I got to play with an SEM and help out with a clinical study. 

Although it happened close to the end of my time in the lab, playing with the SEM was one of my favorite experiences.  I had worked with one in a previous lab, but this scope was much newer and a pure joy to operate (it had about 9 control knobs compared to a little over 60).  The images we took were simply great, and in the process we figured out some important questions - namely, that one type of stent does indeed encrust while inside the patient's ureter.  Pictures (mostly of the artistic variety) are in the gallery.  The whole experiment sums up the scientific process quite neatly - we came up with a question, put the question to the test, observed the results, and discovered our answer.  It was nice to conclude with this project, as our other ones had not gone nearly as well (the first thing you learn in research is that science is actually terribly messy, no matter TV and the media would have you believe).  Thankfully, I can leave knowing that I've contributed a definite answer to a medical question, however minor, and that's a very good feeling.