Working in the Nagle Lab

I started doing research in Biophysics April 2008 in the Nagle lab at Carnegie Mellon University. At first I was intimidated by the environment because Biology was my weakest subject. Over the past year however, I've learned much and am now accustomed to what goes into professional research. I spent the last summer doing research and as a result was able to obtain a Small Undergraduate Research Grant from Carnegie Mellon University's Undergraduate Research Office and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Academic-Year Reseracher Award. The following are some things I accomplished during this past year:

• Went to the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS)
  and took experimental data for 12 hours a day for a week.
• Analyzed CHESS data using TVIEW program, solving for
  bulk modulus and bending constants for various lipids.
• Prepared oriented samples for x-ray scattering using Tristram-
  Nagle pioneered "Rock and Roll" technique.
• Prepared multilamelar vessical samples in cappilaries.
• Used H2 program to solve for electron density of various lipids.
• Found measurements of several lipids using careful
  experiments involving H20 - D20 mixtures.
• Learned how to record all experimental proceedings and
  report findings to lab group.

This is a sample of a Low Angle X-ray (LAX) Scattering image of Dioleoyl-Glycero-Phosphocholine (DOPC) with 30% cholesterol. This type of image is used in conjunction with TVIEW, which integrates the intensity along the intensity peaks and fits for a bending constant and bulk modulus.