Affan Kayser
Class of 2005 - Present
H.S. of Medical Sciences
Topic: Detecting Hypoxia Gradients in Hypoxia Tumors
About:
Good morning, good afternoon, and good night.... However time you may be looking at this, you might want to know who I am and where I worked over this summer. Well my name is Affan Kayser, the age of 15, and in my sophomore year of high school. During my summer vacation I devoted my time in working at a laboratory in the Rockefeller building which is one of the smallest buildings in Memorial Salon- Kettering cancer research center. This was where Dr. Sat Bhattacharya had assigned me as well as another person who helped me be situated with the things in the lab that I had been a complete stranger with. Not only was I with a certain partner, but also I had the privilege to have a mentor guide me in the experiments we had to run. My mentor’s name was Dr. Katia Manova, a really sweet, caring and wise mentor.
At the lab I was loaded with a variety of jobs. At first it was getting some supplies for the lab and keeping watch over the lab for needed things that it needed. Then it was experimenting new antibodies over a variety of mouse tissues, and tumors.... Even though it was very time consuming, it was an experience that I never imagined a scientist would do. The fun that I had doing these experiments was very surprising. Cleaning, heating, freezing, inserting chemicals, and adding manmade antibodies to tissue. After the end of these experiments with a few days left till I had to start school again, I had the interesting job of carrying mouse cages consumed of mice, up to my mentor for dissection. This was an everyday occurrence, though at times I was frightened by the fear I beheld when I took out a mouse cage from a shelf.
One experiment that interested me when I was in the mode of experimenting was an antibody experiment that I felt was one of my best. Surpassingly I had run several trials for this experiment and ended up with the same result as my first trial, which was very successful. In this experiment I had to test a manmade primary antibody on a mouse tumor tissue to identify if there was hypoxia on some parts of the tumor. Hypoxia is the absence of oxygen in living tissue. The tumor we tested was a hypoxic tumor. The result we wanted to see was if hypoxia could be attached to some parts of the tumor, informing us that without the absence of oxygen, cells in the tumor will die and therefore stop the increase of the tumors growth. Eventually the tumor will die. Using chemicals and certain retrievals to retrieve an antibody in the tumor, we prepared to apply the primary antibody called PIMO. After several days when we checked the slides under a fluorescent microscope, since the primary antibody was immunofluorescent, we found Hypoxia sprawled about in the surface of the tumor tissues. Several other trials were done with the same primary antibody and were also found successful.
Working in the lab this summer was one road full of surprising results. Hopefully once again I will gain this kind of experience next summer where I will no longer be a stranger to things consumed in a lab. I will have an old piece of mind, and a new road to drive on.