Caltech

Another Summer Project

Summer is a time to relax; it is a time to contemplate the future, reminisce the joy of the past, enjoying life doing exciting activities. Summer is also a time to achieve a few personal goals. Some of my friends plan on reading twenty books over the summer; some plan to run a marathon; some plan to drive around the country in a van. My goal over the summer is to be able to fit into those awesome jeans that had been sitting in the closet for the past years.

            While many of my friends have resisted change and conquered the freshman 15, I was not so successful. Studying at Caltech is no easy task; one spends an enormous amount of time in sedentary environment and often forgets to exercise. After one year, I not only did not lose weight, but also added some. I was very disappointed at myself for losing this battle to the pull of fatty snack. Thus, I’ve decided, once again, that I will not only lose the weight I gained over the year, but also get in shape once and for all.

            Ever since freshman year of high school, I have been making this resolution at the beginning of every summer. I told myself that I would get in awesome shape over the summer and maintain it. However, I never succeeded in retaining the fruits of my victory. School commanded a majority of my time so I forgot about exercising. Soon enough, all the weight I lost over the summer came back.

            But this time, I had enough. I had enough of finding myself excuses for not being disciplined about snacking, for being lazy and not jogging, and most importantly for not maintaining. Succeeding in losing the weight is just one part. If one keeps on losing weight but doesn’t maintain it, losing weight is useless in the first place. Why lose it if you will gain it back?

            I have done some thinking at the beginning of this summer. I made this realization and have made plans that would change my life permanently. In order to lose weight and maintain it, one has to be realistic and change gradually. Sudden bursts of extreme workouts and starvation are not answers to slimming down. Persistence, dedication, faith, and a smart plan are the keys to victory in a war with weight loss.

I also analyzed my diet like how I studied my research. I looked into my diet and my exercise pattern. I tailored a series of reasonable daily exercises and a meal plan. In the past two months, I have stuck to my theory of gradual “habitual shift.” I initially ate one less meal than before. Then, after becoming comfortable with eating two meals a day, I began to exercise, not rigorously. I started by jogging a mile per day. The next week, I increased the distance to 1.5 miles. The next week, I ran 2 miles. Eventually, I capped at 3 miles per day. To be honest, I never felt so energized before from running.

            By August, I have, once again, lost 15 pounds. But, the difference this time around, I feel excited and normal instead of hungry and tired like all the years before when I exercised with extreme rigor and starved myself. I feel I have reached closer to sustaining my weight loss than ever before.

New people at healthcare conference

In the last post, I talked about spending some time doing something meaningful other than my research. Last week, I arranged a visit with an oncologist that I have worked under before. I went to his clinic, where I shadowed him for a few hours when he checked up on his patients. His name, once again, is Yun Yen. Dr. Yen doesn’t see that many cancer patients nowadays. I suppose it is due to his aging and his research. The man is a MD/PhD, who leads a whole lab at a cancer research hospital in LA. If you want to read more about my experience and my thoughts, you can go to the previous post.

This post is about attending a healthcare conference and touring the University of Southern California (USC)! This event actually happened last Saturday, July 16^th, in Tutor’s Ballroom at USC. A group called Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) held the conference to raise awareness about Single-Payer Healthcare. So why am I going to this conference on healthcare? Well, this is a long story. It all started about a year ago when I went to a conference about healthcare hosted by PNHP’s daughter organization, CaHPSA (California Health Professional Student Alliance). The conference was an introduction to the single-payer healthcare system. It was very comprehensive and logical. I enjoyed attending it and learning about the beliefs of some physicians regarding health care.

After that conference, I followed closely with CaHPSA and became active. This summer conference held by PNHP is one of the main annual events for PNHP and CaHPSA. Curious as to what this conference could teach me, I signed up for it. As it turned out, a day at USC listening to physicians talking about politics and meeting fellow young scholars who are interested in medicine or public health was exciting and enjoyable.

A lot of what was mentioned and talked about during the conference was either information mentioned in the conference I attended last year or strategies to persuade others for the single-payer cause. I was a little disappointed, not at the speakers but by the fact that I did not learn too much new development. The speakers were great. There was constant laughter, nods, and applause among the audience, which demonstrates the competence and humor of the speakers. I was thoroughly entertained by the words of a lady speaker comparing single-payer versus the current US health care system. Her sentences were rich with metaphors and her jokes filled with meaning. Through most of the day, I was engaged and focused on the speakers.

Meeting other youth at the conference was also exciting. There were about ten young adults there, mostly college students and medical students. We are all somehow involved in CaHPSA and interested in single-payer. I was not shy about breaking the ice. When I first got the conference, I introduced myself to a group of youths and started conversations. Among all the youths there, I spent most of my time in a group with three others. The first three people I met there are Roy, Kelly, and Kelly’s friend. Roy is an incoming junior at UCLA. Kelly just graduated from UC Berkeley and is taking a year off. Kelly’s friend is going to attend Harvard Law this fall. I was very impressed by the level of education of the CaHPSA members and felt honored by being interested in their cause. In just one day, I felt I have made friends with these three. I would want to talk about touring the USC campus if I had more time.

The lesson is to go out there and meet new people!

Doc Visit!

What is new in everyone’s life? It is the middle of July. Everyone is occupied, whether it is working or going on vacation. The middle of the summer is dead quiet with very little going on.

For me, there is not really that much going on within the past week. It seems like that when someone is deeply involved in doing research, time just pass by much slower and events fewer in number. The cells that I am growing in the lab have become my precious children. My priority is to make sure my experiments run smoothly and successfully.

Sometimes, I become deeply involved in lab work that time just flies by. I need to spend a portion of my time on some of my other interests; so I did. This weekend, I checked off two events I would like to attend this summer that is not research related: visiting a physician and attending a health related conference.

In this post, I will focus on my visit to a physician. After contacting a research physician Dr. Yen at a nearby cancer research hospital previously and receiving an opportunity to visiting his clinic, I arrived at his office Friday morning. The research physician’s name is Yen. Dr. Yen is an MD/PhD who is the primary investigator of the Molecular Pharmacology Department at the hospital. He also is an oncologist with many cancer patients. I have known Dr. Yen since last summer, when I carried out two projects in his lab. I have known that he is a great mentor and supporter to his lab members. The man works extremely hard and rarely takes vacations. Sometimes, he jokes that his job have taken all his black hair and turned it white. Even though we all laugh, we all know it is true. He is a role model for me and I have the greatest respect for him.

It has been a year since last time I was in the lab. To be honest, I was quite anxious about meeting the man that I respected so much. His presence erased my uneasiness immediately. He still looks like Dr. Yen from a year ago: relaxed, warm, and rotund. He greeted me with enthusiasm and inquired about my schoolwork. I affirmed him that I am doing well and is having a lot of fun during the process. He smiled and we walked into the cancer hospital, ready to check up on people whose lives were harassed by cancer.

To say that the shadowing was worth my morning would be an understatement. In less than three hours, Dr. Yen finished checking on all his patients, approximately ten patients. Every one of those people had some kind of cancer: prostate, breast, liver, and lung cancer. Some have multiple cancers; some have cancer that metastasized; some had cancer that runs in the family. Despite their issues, I saw appreciation and courage in their eyes. I was amazed by how much hope they have. All their strength must have been the work of Dr. Yen. To inspire such hope in people despite the severe situation they are in shall command applause and respect. I hope one day I could, like Dr. Yen, help people in pain. After I thanked Dr. Yen for the visit, I drove to work jolly and energized.

Going Ped in LA

            When my parents came home exhausted, I never understood their pain and stress. I thought they were exaggerating a bit. How hard could working be? I work all the time: going to school, studying math, doing problem sets, and reading books. But I rarely feel exhausted or complain. But my bubble about holding a real life job has been popped this past weekend.

            During the weekend, I had to come in the lab to take care of my cells since my cells cannot survive in unchanged medium (their food) for more than 24 hours. Thus, as an enthusiastic researcher, I volunteered to my mentor to come in during the weekend. Unfortunately, my parents both had to work during the weekend. I was left with the limited options of public transportation, which we all know is not so great in Los Angeles.

            After finish growing my cells in the morning, I packed up my things and was ready to embark on the journey to the metro link station about ¾ of a mile away from school campus. I thought it would be a quick, pleasant walk. But the grueling sun immediately dismissed my fancy of a pleasant stroll. It was at least over 90C outside! The march was made even more difficult by the raise in elevation of the path to the metro station.

            The whole trip took about an hour. It was an exhausting one. Yet, it was also fun. On the walk back, I noticed many small animals, the trees, even the little shops along the streets, and the blue, cloudless sky. It was a great field trip, so to speak, and my daily workout. Anyhow, one thing I certainly learned from these two trips back home was that working can be extremely demanding.

Week 4!

Sorry for the late post! The slow, relaxed summer has gotten to me! Anyhow, this past week was very uneventful. There was not much going on both inside the lab and outside with friends.

In my research, I have passed the stage of practicing growing muscle cells and moving on to practicing growing them in 96-well plates (yay for repetition) and reading some previously collected data on gene-to-gene interactions. Although practicing plating repetitively seemed tedious, it was extremely beneficial in the long run because no one would want to mess up the experiment and have to restart—that would be a horrific scene. Thus, I practiced and practiced, knowing that practice makes perfect. So far, I could finish a plate within minutes. The only aspect that still needed improvement is consistency in the number of cells in each well. In order to make that leap, I will need to mix the cells well enough for them to spread evenly in each well surface. It might sound easy, but in reality, that is no easy task. It would involve timing, precision, and consistency.

Also, something else that I did a lot this past week was reading and analyzing data collected from previous experiments conducted in my lab. Apparently, there were people who already performed a lot of experiments on how genes interact. I suppose that mine would differ from theirs because I would make a bigger stride and attempt to further define the interactions between these genes on a more specific and 3D level by conducting my own experiments in latter weeks. But the compilation of all the previous data had been a real surprise to me, since I did not expect so much development in gene regulation at this stage of time.

Also, I hung out with friends last week! We had boba, something we all missed dearly since most of us have been much busier in recent weeks. At first, I thought we came together just for the boba. But as it turned out, I slowly realized that it was more about meeting up with friends and chit-chatting that brought us together every time. Life as a researcher can be quite stressful and demanding. Sometimes, we get lost in all the tasks that require our attention and forget about having fun, become distant with our world, and forget about our friends. My enforcement of weekly boba run with my friends ensures that we don’t become too stressed out with work and also remember there are people who define the importance of our existence outside of lab results.

In short, during last week’s boba run, I had my usual Thai milk tea with boba. It tasted fantastic after a whole day of doing wet bench work.

The Complete Coverage of 4th of July

            “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America…” As I stood in front of the South Pasadena city hall in the sunny morning of July 4^th, ready to embrace and celebrate one of the most important dates in American history, the day that our Founding Fathers formally declared the independence of the United States of America.

            This has always been one of my favorite holidays annually. All the fireworks, festivities, and parades have made this holiday special for me. Every year, I have a set of tasks to do: marching in the 4^th of July Parade in South Pasadena, helping out at my Boy Scout troop’s booth, traveling to the beach, and watching firework at South Pasadena High School football field. 4^th of July is like grandmother’s freshly baked cookies, packed with sweets and filled with jolly.

            This year, even though I have become an adult and survived the first year of college, 4^th of July shall stay as one of the most festival day among all the holidays. Anyhow, the day started with a sincere and warm greeting from the Sun. It shone directly on my head as a woke up call from the nature. It wanted to alert me about the great day ahead, a day when I do not have to worry about the uncertainties of tomorrow and just focus on celebration and festivities.

            After waking up around 9AM, I had an hour to find my scouting uniform, which I have not seen for a year, iron it, and walk to the South Pasadena city hall, where the jolly day shall begin with a march down the main commercial street of South Pasadena. As it turned out, finding something that you have not seen in a year can be quite difficult since you would have no idea where you stored it to begin with. After scouring around my closet and boxes of old clothes, I realized that I had a special drawer in my file cabin for scouting clothing and material. I quickly pulled out my scout top, bottom, neckerchief, and belt. I ironed, put on the cloth, and rushed to the city hall with my mother (who loves to take pictures).

            When I arrived at the scene, the current leader of my scout troop was about to performed the flag ceremony for the city to initiate the 4^th of July Parade. I stood in with my scouting family, saluted to the flag, and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. From that moment, the rest of the day unwound smoothly.

            Marching in the parade was a nerve-wracking event in the past years. To have so many people focus their attention on made me feel very uncomfortable, though to a lesser degree in the past two or three years. But this year, I was not nervous at all, even though a big reason might be that the sun was too hot and bright. Anyhow, I could hear the crowd on both side of Monterrey Road cheering for our scouts as we marched past by. What used to seem like an endless march has now turned into a quick stroll.

 

            After marching about ten minutes to Garfield Park, I had conquered another grueling march under the sizzling summer heat wave. What’s next? Help troop by selling pizza and cold drinks at our troop’s booth in Garfield Park. There were also a few other booths that featured another boy scout troop, a girl scout troop, the Chinese Alliance, and 4^th of July ticket sponsor. The importance of our sale during the 4^th of July was crucial. This money would help carry out the majority of the activities planned out.

            Something that I did differently this year from previous was that I spent the afternoon of 4^th of July in my lab, checking on my cells, instead of going to the beach. But I felt no regret. After all, doing research is my top priority over the summer.

            When I came back home that night, I was quite exhausted from all the tasks that I participated in that day. My family was waiting for me so we could go to the annual firework show at South Pasadena High School football field. Initially, I was a little unwilling and wanted to relax on the couch. But my parents used their enthusiasm to lift me out of the couch and onto my feet. As it turned out, going to the firework was definitely the right decision. While at the firework show, I met up with many familiar faces and enjoyed the boom of the color, which brought out my fervent that has been sunk by marching and lab work earlier during the day.

SURFSAC

 
Besides just sitting a in a lab all summer long, which might be perceived as extremely monotonous, I am also participating in other activities, such as blogging again and SURFSAC.

            SURFSAC stands for SURF Summer Activity Committee (at least it is my best guess). SURFSAC is sponsored by the Student-Faculty Program (SFP). Usually, SURFSAC is allowed a $6,000 budget. However, $2,000 goes towards SURFSAC dinners (which occur every week), $2,000 goes towards the annual beach trip, and only $2,000 is allotted for weekly events that the SURFSAC can work with to plan out fun activities for student researchers who are involved in the SFP program.

            When I first signed up for SURFSAC, I thought it was going to be all Caltech SURF students running the show. Surprisingly, when I attended the first meeting, there were quite a few non-Caltech SURF students volunteering. Seeing new faces was definitely exciting. But the planning was more fun.

            Within an hour, the SURFSAC has been able to come up with some great ideas that both won’t distract students from their research and also serve as a means of meeting other bright scholars who might share a common interest. Some of the ideas SURFSAC fabricated and executed were pool party, ice cream social, and movie night.

            This past Thursday, I helped out with the ice cream social. At first, I thought it would be too easy. We just needed to get some ice cream and toppings and set them on the Olive Walk for the students to enjoy and hang around. However, there was much more planning and preparation that I expected. First, we decided that there needed to be some other entertainment in order to convince the students to stay around. Thus, we borrowed a pair of speakers from the Caltech Y to play music. Then, we wanted to make this fancy by using Ruddock’s counter.

            That was just the planning. When the time came, few of us SURFSAC muscles had to drag the  counter to the Olive Walk, set up the speakers, and serve ice cream to hungry students! Since I have not been to the gym for over a month, I was exhausted after all the physically demanding maneuvering. But hey, it was fun to see so many foreign faces enjoying the fruits of my labor. It was a fun social and I would definitely want to help out again.

Week 2!

    As I sit in front of my desk writing this blog post, the second week of SURF has flown by me. This week was quite different from the last. Last week was like the warm welcome. Then, starting from the second week, it has been pedal to the metal. Overall, the summer has not been as stressful as during the school year with all the problem sets and quizzes. However, it does not mean the summer is just sit back and relax time.

     During this week, I have completed a lot. Mostly, I had to carefully manage the conditions of the muscle cells I received from my mentor. These cells will be the cornerstones of my SURF project. As much as I want to, I will not go into details about my project because it is something that belongs to the lab. But one thing I can tell you is how much time I spent in the lab. Every day, I arrived at my desk (I got a desk!) at 8AM to prepare for the exciting day ahead and left at 7PM. That is quite a long time for me to focus on something. But that should speak about the amount of work that goes into research.

            Anyhow, I will now talk about my interactions with others in the lab. The Wold Lab is a large lab relative to some other labs. It almost encompasses the whole first floor of Kirchhoff research building. Naturally, with all the research and SURFSAC meetings, I have not explored the entire lab and met every member of the lab. However, I feel that I have built a great relationship with the lab members I got to know.

            The person that I felt I got to know the most has to be my mentor, Katherine. Katherine is a sixth year graduate student here at Caltech. Hopefully, she will be done with her work here soon. Anyhow, one thing I noticed about her and most other researchers is that she has a quick mind and thinks critically. After all, this is one of the major factors that attracted me to doing research. Critical thinking is crucial in every field in the modern day. I personally believe conducting research is a great way to develop critical thinking ability with the obstacles of creating one’s own project, figuring out the went wrong in the data, and figuring out how to address the error. These are all important aspects of working in a lab and important for critical thinking.

            In the brief two weeks doing research, I have experienced situations in which that I need to think outside the box and perform operations that usually would not be in a textbook. I like these applications of knowledge; after all, application is more important than just knowing.

Father's Day

            There is a special time around the year for every father. This special day for them is the third Sunday of June. Of course, I am talking about Father’s Day. Every year around this time, children, young and old, show their appreciation for their fathers by giving them gifts, inviting them to dinner, or participating in family activities.

            On this Sunday, I got quite curious about the origin and the story behind Father’s Day. Thus, I turned to a good friend of mine, the Internet, for an answer to my curiosity. Once again, the Internet came up with an answer.

            As it turned out, the origin behind Father’s Day in the US was actually quite interesting. Apparently, two women from almost around the same time period, Grace Clayton and Sonora Dodd, cam up with the idea of celebrating fathers as a complement to Mother’s Day. Clayton inspired by the death of 210 fathers in a mining accident and Dodd inspired by her single father. You would think that Father’s Day should easily become a national holiday. As it turned out, it was first proposed in the 1910s but was made a national holiday by President Richard Nixon in 1972.

            After learning about the story behind this special day, I had a whole day with my family. As it turned out, I did not have money to buy my father a gift. But since I know my father well, I knew he would not really want a new watch or a new toolbox. He would probably want something more worthwhile. I figured that if I shared with him my research on the Internet, he would know that I really cared about Father’s Day and that I had curiosity and willingness to discover. As it turned out, my speculation was true. Dad was quite happy about hearing my report on the origin of Father’s Day and I dodged a bullet for not buying a materialistic gift for him.

            For the rest of the day, my family drove to Santa Barbara to stroll and relax on its famous beaches. It was a sunny day and everything seemed to pass slowly and gracefully. The birds in the air sang the praises to fathers around the world. The waves performed dances for the people on the beach in celebration of Father’s Day. This was a great day!

SURF!!!

            Tuesday is the start of a new term. In this term, there is no homework. There is only learning new techniques and applying those knowledge. Of course, I am talking about the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) here at Caltech!

            For those of you who are still not very familiar with SURF, it is a unique research opportunity for students at Caltech and other colleges. The process is quite simple. At the beginning of second term in January, students look at various research subjects they are interested in. Then, students email the primary investigator, usually a professor, about their interest in the professor’s research. Then, the prof will respond within a week to either ask the students to go to their office for an interview or politely let the students know that he or she would not take a SURF student that year. Once notified, students go to the lab at the indicated time and talk to the prof about their research and some of the students’ own inspirations. Most likely, the prof will offer the students a project for the SURF proposal. The students will read numerous papers as background information, collaborate with a mentor from the lab, and write a proposal to submit to the SURF program. Students are notified in April about their acceptance into the SURF.

            So that is the process of applying for SURF for me. I looked at different Biology research projects. I interviewed in a few labs and decided to continue my scientific endeavor in the Wold Lab, working on a gene regulation project for the summer.

            This first week of lab was quite a breeze. Since I started working in my lab during the Spring term for credit, I have already gotten familiar with my mentor, some basic lab techniques, and the rules of this lab. The first day of research was just like any other day, except I have the opportunity to experience the life of a research and graduate student.

            In this first week, my schedule was quite regular. The first thing I do when I got into the lab in the morning, I went to the lab to check on the cells I grew on the first day. Depending on how dense the cells are, I decide whether to just change the growth medium or split the plate of cells into two plates of cells. Then, I sit in my desk for a bit, documenting the protocol and some of the observations of my cells. After lunch, I usually have a meeting with my mentor to discuss my progress and the impending goals. Sometimes, I had nothing to do for the day, I would read books and learn about python language because I will need it in the future for this project.

            All in all, the first week of research was great. It has not gotten very deep and time consuming yet. This allows me to further soak in the feel for my project, looking at the bigger picture. Anyhow, that will be all for now. Have a great week!