Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Well, today was another preparation day in the lab. We set up our water baths, practiced dissecting a fish and perfusing its liver (pumping all of the blood out of it). We also practiced the cell isolation technique. It sounds pretty glamourous but it is a pretty blunt process! We cut up the liver into small pieces and then float them in a solution that breaks up all of the connective tissue, then we grind it all up and force it through a very fine mesh to get only hepatocytes (liver cells). It all sounds so glamourous (as is the life of a scientist) and I will post pictures when I get some. But for now, here are some fun pictures from when we last pulled up our fish trap! We got a really cool, very small sea star which you can see in my hand. Today (and the day we pulled the trap) were both great days!