Week 4 - Daniella Fodera

Little to report given that this week was somewhat abbreviated because of the holiday. Additionally, my clinician had no surgeries this week for which I could shadow and obtain additional human samples for my study. My time was exclusively spent in the laboratory planning and preparing for significant experiments to be conducted next week. Using flow cytometry, I seek to characterize the inflammatory cells present in chronic rotator cuff tendinopathy, a disorder that has previously been thought to be exclusively degenerative. With my mentor Takayuki having left for Japan to renew his visa, I was on my own to validate and optimize the inflammatory panels we developed at the beginning of this summer for which the antibodies had just arrived. In lieu of utilizing precious human samples for preliminary testing, I conducted analysis on human PBMCs (peripheral blood mononuclear cells) collected and isolated from donor bank blood. Unfortunately, additional steps for optimization and validation of the flow panels are necessary as the results obtained were not consistent with what was expected. With my research this summer thus far, I have realized that flow cytometry is such a powerful tool for analysis however limitations inherently exist in regards to the subjectivity of analysis and adjusting the compensation settings.