Matt Boyle, Entry #1, Working in the Dog Lab is the Opposite of "Ruff"

My first day of work in the mason lab ended up being a day well spent on the golf course, while the second day consisted of my cross country training and a trip to the mall as well as a trip to center city for dinner! Let me explain.  Sunday afternoon I received an email from the PhD student in the lab (named Kazim) that Dr. Mason (the PI) was at a conference in Washington until Wednesday and Josephine (the lab technician, who I work directly with) was attending her mother's funeral in Sri Lanka, was out all week.  However, Kazim assured me that he would show me the ropes of the lab while at least the PI was out, which was perfectly fine with me because I assumed I would know the tricks of the trade and be able to impress the heavy hitters of the lab (namely, Dr. Mason and Josephine) when they returned!  I was all packed and excited to go down to my grandparents’ house (where I will be staying all summer, as they live a few minutes from Philly) that night. However, I received a text from my man Kazim that he was in the ER at the Penn Hospital, and that I should not come in the next day.  That was okay though, as I was able to spend Monday on the golf course with my Dad! I thought to myself, "I can't wait to graduate college and get a job, working is great!" as I strolled up to the first tee box.  

After a solid round of golf I was in the car driving down to my grandparents, but got another text (that actually woke me up as I slept on the car ride down) that Kazim was still in the hospital and I should take the day off again and be ready to come in on Wednesday.

Eventually, Wednesday morning did arrive and with Kazim out of the hospital, and Dr. Mason back from Washington I came into the Hill Pavilion Building, made friends with the receptionist (her name is Maddie! Sounds like my name!), and met Dr. Mason for the first time, where I quickly found out that this day would not be a typical day in the lab. When I saw Dr. Mason she was running to her office from the Vet Hospital, all scrubbed up, preparing to administer her novel cancer treatment to a 7 year old grey hound with the cancer osteosarcoma named Danica.  (Pictured below).  Mason said "Matt, Great to meet you! Come with me!" and I tried to keep up with her as she grabbed her stethoscope from her office and walked (extremely) quickly back into the hospital.  When we got there, my alpha-male strength was utilized for lifting Danica up onto the X-Ray machine (radio-graph machine as I found out it is called in doctor terms) and then she was walked to the soft-tissue section of the Hospital where the treatment, (a vaccine of genetically modified B-Cells) was to be administered.

Here's the crazy part.  Since the lab was so short a couple members, I was in charge of monitoring Danica's response to the treatment. The treatment Dr. Mason and her lab have designed triggers the immune system to become active and generate a T-Cell response against the cancerous tumor cells.  Therefore, understandably, the patient will almost always experience an increased temperature, as well as some side effects of nausea/vomiting, or if it gets bad, passing out or a seizure.  Dr. Mason gave me her phone number in case anything happened and left me monitoring the dog's blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and general well-being, while she received more potential candidates/dogs for the trial of her treatment for osteosarcoma.  I was writing the data down on the Hospital’s records as well as Dr. Mason’s personal records for her trial.  Talk about pressure. (If you are Danica's owner and reading this, no I do not have a medical license but I tried my best I promise).

Later, I was perceived as a Vet School student and asked by the nurse of the ICU to help draw blood from another dog. 

Monitoring Danica's response to the vaccine

The next day, Dr. Mason showed me around the lab.  The Mason lab consists of many different projects, one being the CD40 B Cell project (which is my main project) and another being the CAR T-Cell project  Her main spot is the Tissue Culture room where all of her growing cells are incubated, the centrifuge is located, the fume hoods are, etc.  I was thrown right into the mix of things as she gave me the blood sample from a dog and talked me through extracting the PBMC’s (peripheral blood mononuclear cells) – white blood cells – from the blood.  We then counted the cells with a hemocytometer; a small piece of glass which holds a small sample of your cell culture and allows you to, proportionately, estimate the number of cells you have extracted from the blood sample by looking at the hemocytometer under a microscope. 

I was then assigned my first major responsibility: Dr. Mason received an e-mail asking if she could generate a vaccine for a horse with lymphoma.  I was in charge of creating a mini research proposal (thank you Dr. Peretz and Dr. Crider for teaching me how to write those things!!) for generating a vaccine for the horse (who has tumors that are very visible in the picture below). 

I now have to, within a loose budget, decide what materials we need to create the horse vaccine, as it is slightly different from the canine vaccine.  I also need to determine the complications associated with attempting to adapt this treatment to a different animal.  For example, what if the treatment targets a protein that is present in horse (equine) eye balls, but not in canine eye balls.  Then T-Cell response would cause the horse to go blind which would be undesirable to say the least.   The research has consisted of determining possible horse reagents as well as locating cytokines such as Inter-Leuken 4: recombinant proteins present in white blood cells that stimulate an inter-cellular response.

I am also a big component in the CD40 B Cell project, a new approach to the cancer treatment that targets the CD40 Ligand protein of cancer cells.  However, this project is slightly delayed as Josephine has just returned.

The horse that we are being asked to make a CD40 Vaccine for.  There are two visible tumors; one at the top of the left year leg and one just beneath the left side of the saddle.

The PI Dr. Mason has been phenomenal and has made me enjoy my time in the lab very much.  She has spent a lot of time one on one with me even though she is super busy between her work in the lab and at the hospital.  She is hilarious, extremely smart, and extremely modest which is remarkable given the enormous success of her treatment.  The lab itself is rather small, with only the PI and the lab technician, as well as Kazim working on his PhD, two vet school students, and myself.  The main area where we work is the tissue culture lab where the cells are collected, harvested, grown, counted, altered etc. You can see one of the flow hoods below, which is the area where all experiments are carried out; as I learned very quickly, there are numerous precautions taken to ensure that everything is kept as sterile as possible.