| Affiliations: | Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology, DeBakey Institute |
| Project Leader: | Rebecca Harlow rebecca.harlow@tamu.edu Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology |
| Faculty Mentor: | Dr. Ranjeet Dongaonkar, Ph.D. |
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Meeting Times:
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8am-12pm (Thursdays OR Fridays) Some flexibility time-wise for Friday slots. |
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Team Size:
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8 (Team Full) |
| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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Learn several laboratory techniques and expand understanding of lymphatic, vascular, and gastrointestinal physiology. Opportunity to participate in isolated lymphatic vessels experiments. Opportunity to earn co-authorship on publications (conference abstracts, journal articles).
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Team Needs:
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I have worked with teams before and take mentoring seriously. This semester I want to maximize research productivity and am looking for independently minded people who are willing to step up and try to be productive as soon as possible. No prior research experience is expected (freshman and sophomore welcomed!), but students will be expected to follow a detailed protocol (after training), and trouble-shoot with minimum oversight. Students will be registered for 3 credit hours of VTPP 291 or 491, so some time will be spent outside the lab reading journal articles and understanding the literature. |
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Description:
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Lymphatic vessels do not behave like veins – they spontaneously contract, (each valved section acts like its own tiny cardiac ventricle!) My project is studying how the lymphatic vessels are damaged in major surgery patients by the high volume of IV fluid injected perioperatively, with the hope that targeting lymphatic function could prevent the fluid-therapy induced bowel edema. Because of the amount of work invested in each experiment, students are expected to attend/help every week. I will surgically induce edema in rats early in the week, and then I will euthanize early Thursday/Friday morning and collect tissue. I need students’ help in preparing tissue samples (weighing, freezing, centrifuging, histology prep, etc) for analysis (degree of edema/hemodilution, inflammation/tissue damage). Following a short training period, students will assist by preparing tubing and equipment set up for in vitro studies of isolated and cannulated lymphatic vessels: diameter, pressure, and tension produced by the spontaneously contracting lymphatic vessel will be acquired, and contraction frequency and lymph flow calculations will be analyzed
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