Sometimes, things don’t always work out the way you expect!

After testing my first functionalized samples of hBN by dissolving in a solution of hexane, we discovered that we did not have a hydrophobic sample of hBN. In fact, it still dissolved way too well in distilled water. It was hard to deal with this disappointment as, in theory, I really expected it to work. However, my mentor insisted we still analyze the sample using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).

On the left is the functionalized hBN dissolved in hexane. All of it has settled out on the bottom. On the right is the functionalized hBN dissolved in DI water. You can see it is loving the water WAY too much.

It was really cool learning to use the FTIR machine. After a graduate student demonstrated how to use the machine, she then let me do all my samples on my own!!

On the left is a picture of my control and my 3 samples I am ready to test. On the right is a picture of the graduate student assisting me. 🙂

Upon receiving the FTIR results we could see that it was NOT a complete failure.  The hBN was in fact becoming functionalized, just not to the degree we were expecting.  My mentor suggested trying a different chemical and so thus begins a new week and new hopes!

The second week was more than a week for me.  I guess should count it for four weeks look what I am done.  I look way better in black and white 

This is called thresholding on python. it looks so easy but three days for me to figure out. Thresholding is the first step ppg, to detect blood pressure or pulse from a webcam. You might think this is easy but I did that with zero python knowledge.

I learned how to block back round on the pictures this is regular picture

and

After every other color is blocked but my skin tone. I will keep learning awesome experience and great opportunity

I had the chance to use the epifluorescence microscope and found Telophase. I was so excited to see this concept up close. I am using my finger in this image to point to the new daughter cells. I was able to see the DNA by using the tag DAPI because DAPI makes the DNA appear blue. This picture is magnified at 20 X’s, 50 um. I can not wait to show my students this image 🙂

This program is way more than I was expecting…

I start at 8 am and most days work until 5pm, although I have already done 630 pm twice. My wife looks at me sometimes and asks,” are you sure you want to be doing this”?

“I do, like when I married you, I do”.  She says, “you will barely have 13 days before school starts again. Why are you banging your head against the wall like this”?

Truthfully, I want to say you are right, I should stop and hang out with my son and build Lego toy sets with him or make glitter bombs with my daughter but something inside me compels my actions. It is inexplicable, something has gripped me, nanotech has planted a seed in me and the soil is rich…I have a strangely good feeling about this experience, an intuition for something more than has been delivered  and promised.

Next week my mentor is paying for me to attend the local AAWA meeting for the Southwest. What is on the agenda? The conference is nothing less than the next 50 years of water needs and water rights acquisitions for the Southwest and how the water will be provided or supplied.

” Why do I bang my head against the wall babe?, because it will feel so good when I stop”… thanks for indulging me guys!!!

This week, I continued to code using Python but with success. Last week, I was learning how to code. This week I was implementing some of the coding techniques that is involved with rPPG. My first big coding task was to implement thresholding on a live video. So basically, it takes the video and converts it to black and white (see images and video below).

After thresholding, I worked on code that would implement facial recognition.  So the way the code works, it recognizes the face by placing a box around it. Then it tries to recognizes the eyes by placing green boxes around that. When I tried it on a focused picture of myself (nothing to much in the background) it worked perfectly. When I tried it again on a picture of my daughter (with a very busy background), it recognized her face but it also recognized several inanimate objects as eyes as well, such a picture of a chin and a heart.

My third big coding task was color tracking. This one was a little bit tougher for me but with the help of Gary (a fellow PATHS-UP RET) and Yong (our mentor), I was able to get it done and extend the concept. The first time, I was only tracking the color yellow. I noticed that the color is much better at picking up darker yellows (see yellow paper vs yellow key). Then I expanded to track two colors at once (yellow and red).

Other tasks that I have completed are planning a draft for the Computing for Health Summer Camp. I also found a really interesting article on-line titled “Measurement of heart rate variability using off-the-shelf smart phones” that talked about how it reduces absolute errors of HRV metrics comparing with the related works using RGB color signals using short video clips from the camera on the smartphone. Thus being able to produce reliable HRV metrics using remote health monitoring in a convenient and comfortable way. The difference in their paper and what I plan do with my research is that they used a chrominance-based remote PPG algorithm and what Rice and myself is using is a distance r-PPG algorithm and that I will potentially being creating a mobile app.

I also was able to play around with this gaze detector app. It was pretty cool. It detects facial regions when gazing at the computer screen.

The research continues….

This week we finished setting up our first plates to test since I the RET program has started. We tried a different type of tape to hold down our membrane in the hopes that it would be non-conductive allowed all the conduction to take place in the membrane. Unfortunately, the tape showed signs of being conductive and also lost adhesion during the testing process.

We decided to wait an extra day before starting our experiment and as a result a thin layer of membrane like mucus formed at the very top of the dish. We had to remove this layer as best as we good with our mini net. The layer broke apart into smaller pieces and made recording accurate data a real pain.

One of our two dishes did provide good data as show on the computer screen below. The 1st image shows the setup of the experiment. The OCT and our two dishes connected to a anode (red) and Cathode (black).

The image below is of our membrane the solid white layer at the bottom and the biofilm the spotted layer above it. This was our recording before we began applying a current. It shows a clear build up of biofilm that we are trying to remove. It is a pretty beautiful image when you see it up close.

Good morning everyone!

This post won’t be as long, I promise!! This week, I became very familiar with the cold room (left) and warm room (right). This is where – you guessed it! The rooms are either cold or warm. If we place our materials in the cold room, the temperature slows bacterial growth. However, if we place our materials in our warm room, then we are trying to grow the bacteria.

For week 2, we tried to see where our phages are at, i.e. are they effective enough, to remove the bacteria. One of our phages were effective… the other not so much. In fact, it grew MORE bacteria when we placed it on our agar plate. The top picture shows the EK12 (a version of E. coli), where the phages were effective. The clearer portions are where we placed the phages. This meant one of our cultures were successful… The other culture most likely didn’t work because our DI water wasn’t DI (it ended up being just tap water), which you can see from the machine in the bottom left. We didn’t know the machine wasn’t producing DI water, so we used it to wash our bacteria and/or other uses for our plates, products, etc. I think it may have gotten fixed today because the “Out of Service” sign was taken down this morning.

I have been weighing powders (agar, soft, BHI which is Brain-Heart Infusion, KCl) for our project. I have also made more culture plates this week.

In an effort to reduce contamination, we are also working near a flame every time now.

The most exciting thing that occurred this week was probably the fact that the centrifuge almost stopped working when I was using it!! We found out it needed to be lubricated, but all is well now!

We did get some results as well, but not the results that Ping or Professor Huang wanted, so we will continue trying.

Have a great weekend everyone!

When the summer began, six weeks sounded like enough time to complete an “ambitious” research project. We are continuing to synthesize more peptides for use on Viri’s graduate work; however, the new proteins will be purified about the time the poster is presented. 🙂 In addition to FMOC sythesis of proteins, I also am learning how to use the MALDI mass spectrometer to analyze the new peptides and use ChemDraw to draw the peptides. As of this week, we decided to only use  three instead of six peptides and  start the preparation and incubation of the peptide hydrogels.  We also tested the Rheometer for use with the smaller hydrogels used in the cell culture. So, now we are scheduled to finish the experiments with time to analyze the data and prepare the poster.

Maldi mass spectrometer

This was my second week in the lab, and I got to know a few more pieces of equipment! The first was the Scanning Electron Microscope, which was INSANELY AWESOME! We were able to put our samples on some SEM slides and view them up to 1 nanometer in length, which made them look completely different than they look to the naked eye. Unfortunately, I did not get an actual picture of our samples, but I did get a picture of Amit loading our samples into their trays!

Next, I spent the day with Tany’s NASA students and got to see the design kitchen where there are all the campus’ 3D printers and spare materials for projects.

Lastly, we all had a drink at Valhalla which is conveniently located under our building!