From Macro to Micro, BEcoming a Bioengineer



It isn’t everyday that you think about the millions of tiny creatures in your gut, on tabletops, and even on your fingertips… bacteria. Many of my friends tease me and call me a germaphobe, because I often wash my hands and am especially careful as to what I touch and always carry around a small container of hand sanitizer. The lab environment really intrigues me because it feeds into my normal habits, as if it was the only place where my germaphobic tendencies were normalized. From the beginning of Module 1, the instructors emphasized spraying the lab bench with 70% ethanol before and after the lab session. While it seemed like just another protective measure on top of the personal protective equipment (PPE) that was required, I considered it as a second nature practice.

It is fascinating to me that even the smallest amount of contamination from using a pipette tip that touched a table surface could cause such a catastrophic result in the experimental data and even nullify the data. I really thought the tissue cell culture lab module experiment was interesting because it was another layer of safety that I never even considered in the first place. Rather than feeling at ease, I felt another layer of nervousness that coated my every action. I was constantly worried that the cells were going to be contaminated, whether it’s from me not changing my gloves and touching the BRCA-/- flask right after handling the DLD-1 flask or just forgetting to spray my gloves after handling outside substances to using pipettes inside the hood to transfer media.  Also, having learned that the parental DLD-1 cell line was from a human patient with colorectal adenocarcinoma Dukes Type C, I was caught a bit off guard as this was my first time every interacting directly with cancer cells. It was made very clear in the pre-lab and on our worksheet that it is essential to not mix up DLD-1 and BRCA2-/- cell lines, and my partner and I decided to be responsible for each flask in order to avoid any risk of contamination. Therefore, the slight probability that a couple cells on my glove would accidentally slip into the other cell lines’ flasks was minimized.

I hesitated my every move, and soon I realized that I was the last group remaining in the tissue culture room as everyone else had already finished the exercise for the day. At some point, a teaching assistant asked if I was okay because my face was tense. I was concerned as I felt like I had to doubt my every move and triple check to ensure I was following safety criteria. Looking forward, I am excited to become more comfortable in the tissue culture room and in other aspects of the lab. Through working in the tissue culture room, I have learned to become more aware of my surroundings and especially of all the prospects of contamination. I have realized that working in a biological engineering lab really requires a mindset that can be hard to adjust to. In a way, every time you step into lab is a test of your problem solving skills, as you are constantly thinking of the possible routes that you can navigate with whatever specimen, cells, or tissues that you are working with. I think this mindset can be applied to other aspects of life as well, and I am looking forward to growing into my own skin as a future biological engineer.





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