Category: Z WEP Archives

Day 4 – Bridgett Rogers and the Design Lab!

Today I got to shadow Bridgett Rogers, who works in DevOps (development operations), and I attended a meeting that discussed how to better streamline and implement Agile, as well as other organization-focused ways of thinking. The highlight of the day came at the end of the day, when I got to visit the Design Lab, which showcases a lot of products, the displayed versions of which never having made it to market. I was totally not allowed to take pictures in this area, apologies in advance. While I can’t go into specifics, I was able to see a model/mockup of the Lenovo Smart Speaker, as well as a custom built desktop designed for gaming. I also was referred to a company called User View, which does massive surveys with people who are interested in alpha/beta-testing products. I am very excited to put my name in with them!

I was also able to visit the data center, where all of Lenovo’s servers are kept. These are the servers that provide for the entire campus, as well as the other Morrisville campus, and even much of Lenovo’s Chinese and Asian operations! I entered in through a very secure, double locked entrance (not any old schmo can get in :D), and I got to take the full tour from the head of the data center, and learn all about the massive amounts of servers, and equally importantly, the massive amounts of power it takes to power them! These servers have to run for years at a time, with no down time, so it is very difficult to maintain them and ensure the length of their life. The room is always kept at 69 degrees so that they will never overheat and fail.

 

NOTE: Pictures will be included later tonight. Currently having issues transferring pics from phone to computer.

Day 4: A Protein more Stingy than Mr. Krabs

Today was national doughnut day. Per the laws of office jobs, someone brought in two dozen doughnuts and they all disappeared within a matter of minutes. You could probably model the amount of doughnuts in the break room with an exponential decay graph. I barely got half of a doughnut, but Dr. Masoudi and I had to carry on with our forlorn bellies. Our empty stomachs pretty much paralleled our experiment (which was fruitless). The electrophoresis analysis that we ran yesterday told us that we needed to start the entire protein-harvesting process all over again. Dr. Masoudi got out a new batch of E. Coli cells, introducing a bacterium to the flasks and keeping the containers in incubators. We also set up a protein-identifying process called a “Western” that creates a protein imprint on a membrane using an electric current – I have yet to see the results of this experiment. We ran a second electrophoresis experiment today as well, and we received a new and unexpected result. The gel that holds our data works by showing us the distribution of peptide chains based on molar mass. Yesterday, we assumed that the thickest, boldest line indicated our target protein, Nb6B9, even though its molar mass was a bit off. The new setup tells us something completely different; that thick, bold line was actually a contaminant that attached itself to our nickel resin during filtration and was never successfully washed out. In our new analysis, a faint second line pops up below a bolder line and is between the molar masses of 5,000 and 17,000 kiloDaltons (the first and second notches) – this line better matches Nb6B9 which is approximately 12,000 kDa. The new trial has pretty much dispelled our previous preconception that the bold line was our target protein, supporting the idea that our filtration methods resulted in an unsatisfactory percent yield.

Besides this bad news, the rest of the day went pretty well. I’m getting to know everyone in the lab a bit better, and I’ve even observed some other chemists setting up X-ray crystallography. In this practice, proteins are crystallized for stability and X-rays are shot at the configurations to create images of the crystallized structures. Hopefully Dr. Masoudi and I will soon get the chance to crystallize and examine our stingy Nb6B9 protein when its attached to a cell receptor (if the protein ever decides to cooperate). Fingers crossed!

Here’s an end-of-the-week haiku:

 

Insect receptors

Patiently wait for stingy

Nb6B9

Day 4: Analyzing Some Results

Today we completed a third day of stability tests at Integrated Lab Solutions. So far, we had done a standard test (same day analyzing), one after 24 hours, and today we set up the test for 48 hours (after the sample was taken). Additionally the past two days we had messed around with the pH of samples so that they could continue the stability tests in different environments in the future. But today, after we (Ben, Chief Scientist, and I) set up the day 3 trial of the long term stability test, we got to take a look at some of the results that they got yesterday afternoon from the 24 hour trial. One of the other lab technicians had spent the morning reviewing and finalizing the results so that we could compare them to the results from day 1. While looking at the two sets of data, we noticed an increase in detected concentration of almost all of the drugs from day 1 to day 2. Only a few had decreased and when they did decrease it was much less significant than those that increased. Noticing this pattern, we made a joint spreadsheet with both sets of data and programmed the spreadsheet with equations to tell us the % difference from day 1 to day 2. Some of the detected concentrations increased by as much as 50%! Unfortunately, even though I got to program the LCMS-MS to read out day 3 samples, the results were not available by the time that I left ILS. Luckily, Ben said that he would send me the final results of the study when the data was retrieved with a discussion of all of the results. I look forward to hearing about the end of this experiment, and enjoyed my time at Integrated Lab Solutions.

Friday (Day 4)

Today I was an intern for David Glenn on his show, The David Glenn show.  Today was free-for-all Friday, so most of the show was taken up by callers calling in about whatever topic they want to. David Glenn explained to us (the interns) that he likes to talk about broad topics that cover social aspects of athletes lives, because its less audience specific and more relatable to everyone. His producer, Darin Vaught, was kind enough to give me a description of his job and explain to me how radio segments are usually planned, with set incriments and hard breaks, but that The David Glenn Show is more relaxed. It was a very cool experience. 

Day 4 – Death By Taser

Today was a day filled with team-building, bonding, growth, and pain. Today I finished my morse code decoder. After working on it for hours and hours every day, it finally worked, without glitch or error message, every time. I was hugely proud of myself, and I wanted to display it alongside all the other gadgets. To do so, however, I would have to set it up with an external power source so it could run on it’s own. A seemingly simple task that proved to be my biggest obstacle yet. I first tried a nine-volt battery, hooked up to the arduino, which was still attached via cable to my computer. Not only did this cause the arduino to crash, it caused the LCD screen to heat up to the point of burning me, and my computer, which was receiving data from the arduino, received a surge of energy, causing it to undergo a catastrophic system crash. Safe to say, I had failed. Sticking to the Cary Academy values of Discovery, Innovation, Collaboration, and Excellence, however, I knew that I couldn’t give up. I waited for my computer to re-boot, salvaged my files, and took another crack. I decided to set up a chain of smaller batteries, that way the voltage would be reduced and the capacity would be increased, based on the series vs sequence model of electrical circuitry. I set up three 2 volt batteries in a chain, and attached them to the arduino in the “power in” pins. However I failed to remember that I was still holding one of the exposed junctures, and when I plugged in the battery, the current found the quickest way between the two points was not through the circuit – it was through me. I fell back from the board with the urgency of one who had just been tasered, as, in a sense, I had been. The tips of my fingers on both hands were bright red, and I felt a strange tingling sensation all around my body. I decided to take the ultimate precautions disconnecting the arduino from the failed power source, and did so with my feet. For the rest of the day, I worked with kids on the 3D printed objects, and didn’t take another crack at the arduino. I’m sure that in the coming days, I will be able to solve the mystery of electricity, but for now, I needed a break from the wonders of technology. I learned an important lesson today- sometimes, you have to know when to stop.

Day 4 – Internal/External Communication

My day in the communications world was fairly interesting. I learnt a lot about the roles of both internal and external communications and how they work together but have very different roles at the same time. In addition, I was introduced to the idea of ghost writing for executives and how you need to be sure you are correctly portraying the voice and tone of the specific executive. The coolest part was listening to the different ways that SAS handles and reacts to negative opinions AND competition. For example Casey explained that one of SAS’s main competitors is a group of very passionate, forward thinking and young people. This makes SAS’s job when dealing with them a little frustrating because SAS is typically not considered as “cool” or “hip.” I attached a picture of a funny incident/scandal that Casey and her team had to deal with! 🙂

 

 

Day 3 – Now It’s Getting Hot In Here

Day 3 was a slow day, for a multitude of reasons. As I quickly learned, Thursdays are often the slowest days for the museum as a whole, so the number of kids that visited our lab decreased by a significant margin. In addition, the central air conditioning of the building crashed around 11:00, so the lab, which is a large, glass-walled room, acted in the same manner a greenhouse does, trapping heat – and us – inside. By the end of the day, the room was about 85 degrees, and that definitely didn’t encourage more foot traffic to visit our lab. As if the heat wasn’t enough, at around 3:00, my computer had a fatal error, and refused to turn on for the rest of the day. The lab has about 20 computers of it’s own, so it wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that all the code that I had written had been saved on my desktop, so it was inaccessible from the other computers. Despite all of the adverse conditions, I still had a fruitful and productive day, finishing my hardware for my Morse code decoder, complete with LCD screen and all, and assembling the circuitry for a new piezoelectronic keyboard, which would play tones at the touch of a finger. One fantastic story came when one of the lab’s volunteers, an older gentleman who helps with the kids, was looking at my project over my shoulder, and remarked “shouldn’t pin 4 connect the ground to the VCC of the LCD?” I was surprised – I had been stuck on an error for a while, and I hadn’t interacted with him previously. I said “maybe!”, and tried it out, re-uploaded the code, and it worked! It just goes to show you – take all the help you can get!

Day 4 at Osceola

“Featuring Jack Werner”
Today was probably the most fun day so far. A country artist was in the studio recording an old-timey singalong type country song that is extremely catchy called “Take My Keys”. I had heard the song during the week while Mr. Hodgin was editing it but I hadn’t met the artist until today. The artist, Andrew, was accompanied by a studio cat named Chad. Studio Cats are like talented musicians who come in to add certain instruments to a song that the artist/band can’t add themselves. Its like a feature with no credit.

After the studio cat had finished adding some harmonies to the vocals, Mr. Hodgin decided that the track needed to add a “drunk bar full of guys poorly singing the chorus” to the end of the song. So, Andrew, Chad the Cat, Mr. Hodgin and I went into the studio, stood around a mic, and sang the chorus of the song together several times. It sounded awesome.

This was a really fun experience, but it also was relieving to see that even in the industry, they are still allowed to have creative fun when they make professional records. In fact, the idea to add this scenic element to the song adds creativity, distinction, and memorability to the record. In the future, this fun idea (and my horrible singing) might be what takesthis record to the Top 40.

Day 4

Today was the last day of my first week working here at Waverly Hematology Oncology. It was a fairly relaxed day. I only saw a few patients today because at 10AM Dr. Graham had to catch a flight to Chicago. Before he left he told me what kinds of things would be discussed at the medical conference that I will be attending Tuesday morning (concerning AR).

Once Dr. Graham left, I saw a few patients with Mrs. Blumenthal. The first patient had some knee problems and Mrs. Blumenthal explained the process of receiving elective surgery. Another patient was very young (21) and was suffering from blood clots in her lungs. The patients were pretty spread out today so I had a lot of downtime. I used this time to go around the clinic asking different people what they did. I had more interactions with another pharmacy technician, some nurses, and some administrative figures.

I’m glad to have taken a break from all the emotional cases I was exposed to for the past few days. I will be reviewing the notes I took on AR during her bone marrow biopsy and X-ray examination in order to be well-prepared for the medical conference at REX Cancer Center on Tuesday!

FWV DAY 3!!

Today we got to work at the official “Intern Bar” and we met a couple other college-aged interns that work full time. We had a really big research task that took up the entire morning, where we paged through magazine editorial calendars to see if there were any upcoming topics that would be a good advertising opportunity for FWV’s clients. For example, in an upcoming Shape magazine, one of the article topics includes natural foods, which could be a great opportunity for one of FWV’s clients to submit their profile in hopes that Shape writes about them. Looking forward to tomorrow!

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