Matter, Energy, and Life of Michaela A. Castello.

Let’s Try Some Science


I have been working on updating my research poster for a presentation I’ll be giving at UMBC as part of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achivement Day. I have been a part of this project since I first started working in scientific research last year, and it’s been extremely exciting to start to see the data come together. Here’s a look into the kind of stuff I do at work.

GFAP comparison.

This picture represents four animal treatment groups (as labelled in the lower right of each shot). The stain is for GFAP, a marker of reactive astrocytes—the little cells that surround your neurons and outnumber them 10:1. The more staining, the more reactive astrocytes, which is a marker of inflammation in the brain. What’s extremely interesting is that the groups whose treatment contains nicotine (on the right) has massivly more reactive astrocytes than control, while the hypoxic treatment looks almost entirely normal. We’ve seen that both nicotine and hypoxic treatment seem to be leading to neuronal death, but this result suggests that nicotine and hypoxia are acting through separate pathways.

Think of it like this—the two treatment types are taking different roads to the same place. The overall significance of this as relates to my project is beyond the scope of a blog post, but trust me, it’s pretty cool.

Yeah, so this is one of those things that gets us science types really excited, but leaves everybody else scratching their head. Consider it my revenge on all of my non-science friends (who comprise the majority of my readers). Haha!


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2 responses to “Let’s Try Some Science”

  1. g30ff Avatar

    That’s pretty sweet Michael. It’s always fun to get exciting results. I feel like a majority of surprises I’ve had (science-wise) are negative. I guess that’s the point though.

  2. Charles H Murphy Avatar
    Charles H Murphy

    grats

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