Welcome to the first entry of Get Your Biology On with Me, your very own Science Girl. This blog will document my experiences working in a biomedical research lab, as well as give you an easily digestible view into current topics in Stem Cell Biology!

About Me:

I’m a very nearly graduated Cellular and Molecular Biology undergraduate, and I am spending the year doing a very slightly premature post-bachelor internship at Stanford University. I come from an artistic family; my mother is a writer, my father is an artist and my brother is a prop builder. The artist gene skipped me, but I still utilize my creativity with exciting Laboratory Research (ooooooh!).  I just uprooted myself and moved six hours away to a new city to pursue my career. I’m from Hawaii originally, so a fair bit of this blog might be me flipping out about all the squirrels around here. You have been warned.

 The Program:

   The internship I am participating in is called the CIRM Bridges Program. It is funded by the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Fun Science fact: Regenerative Medicine is the euphemism du jour for stem cell biology. People hear ‘stem cell’ and think “Baby killers!”, but hear ‘regenerative medicine’ and think “Yes, I do want to be like Wolverine from X-men!” This is one rare case of scientists being good at public relations. The impetus for the State of California creating CIRM was the federal ban on stem cell funding. California would have none of that, and set aside a sizable chunk of money to fund this area of research. CIRM is the single largest funding body for Stem Cell Research in the world. Hot dang, go California!

  The CIRM Bridges Program exists to train a workforce for the growing stem cell industry. It matches small state universities with larger research schools. The state schools select top candidates from their graduating seniors and send them to work at various research labs at the universities they work with. These ‘Bridges Scholars’ (me!) work full time in their host lab for a full year, are paid a livable wage, and hopefully get published while learning under the tutelage of some of the best minds in this field.

A Disclaimer:

   Stem Cell research is a touchy topic for some. Before anyone has a go at me in the comments, I DO NOT WORK WITH EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS. My research is solely on a new variety of stem cells called ‘induced pluripotent stem cells’. These are made from the tissue of consenting adults, and involve no embryonic tissue at all. They aren’t as good as embryonic stem cells, in some ways, but they are ethically simpler, and they have the benefit of being a genetic match to the patient you are treating.  However, I should say that I don’t personally have a problem with embryonic stem cell research. If you’re interested in the long story of why I am okay with this case of experimentation on embryos, please ask. The short story is that there is so much potential good to be done with stem cells.  This medicine could treat Lou Gehrig’s  Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, muscular dystrophy, blindness, deafness, heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, too many diseases and defects to count. This research is too powerful not to use.

This Blog:

In this blog, I'm going to document my time at Stanford, both in and out of the lab. I'm also going to do a bimonthly journal club, in which I will take a recent publication in stem cell biology and explain it in layman's terms, as well as why what they found matters. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope you're ready to Get Your Biology On!