So, as requested, I will introduce my part in the metagenomic project
that I wrote about last week. First of all, you all can read my blog from last
week entitled “Cutting Edge Research RIGHT Here at Sam!” to learn what the
basics of the project it about. In a nutshell, we are working to determine how
fluctuations in the human microbiome may occur during decomposition. We work
with a couple of teams of scientists to analyze the bacterial composition of
both skin and soil samples.
The minute I heard about this
project, I was game. I’ve wanted to become a crime scene investigator since I
was 14, but have learned through the years that I will likely only work in a
lab due to police politics (UNLESS I find a loophole, then I’m all over it!).
When I realized this was as close as I may get to crime scene investigating
(and yes any and all the gore involved – so sue me?), I immediately wanted in
on this research. It’s cutting edge (hence the title from last week, hehe..),
deals with decomposition, and it an amazing opportunity. I went right to Dr.
Lynne and asked how to get on the project. I was pretty much shot down
immediately. There was no current need for any additional members on the team.
So, instead, I bugged him throughout the semester about it. Last January, I
joined Dr. Lynne’s research lab on a completely unrelated project and got my
foot in the door.
In April, I joined the metagenomic project
when additional help was needed. At first, I was an assistant to the team,
meaning I handed the sample tubes to those taking the samples. It wasn’t even
necessary to step inside the plot where the cadavers were placed. Bummer, huh?
NO! I was still completely stoked. This quickly led to my learning about how we
take the samples. We take roughly 32 body site samples for each body, along
with roughly 10 soil samples. I’ve worked on the project since April, meaning I
was here on campus nearly every day this summer. The most recent cadavers we
had were placed out in late July. We began a new protocol of sampling for that
set, meaning we had to take samples 4 times a day: 1:30am, 6:30am, 1:30pm, and
8:30pm. I was responsible for the daily samplings for the entire body and soil
samples, along with the 1:30pm face sampling (this is a side project we hope to
dig into more later, but we have samples from the July Cohort saved back for
when we get to this). We will receive the next cohort of cadavers in November,
where I will be one of the team members of the sampling team. It’s a really interesting
project, and I am really appreciative of being a part of it.
Good way to get yourself to be a part of the team! This seems to be some interesting research though. Do y'all already have some predictions as to how the microbiome may fluctuate?
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I'm just now getting involved in the data analysis portion of the project, so I'm not sure. I know that we have evidence (from other comparative projects and ours) that the fluctuations in the microbiome of decomposition can help to determine the PMI (post-mortem interval). There's alot of focus on the ecological niche spaces of the microbiome, so there is information of how the microbiome may aid the process of decomposition, but it is all still in the progress of being figured out.
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