Rachel Schor

Major: Biology
Purdue School of Science
Supervisor: Steven Welc, Felicia Kennedy
Department: Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Physiology – Indiana University School of Medicine

The effect of collagen on muscular dystrophy

At the beginning of my internship, I was taught a few basic skills: learning how to take sections of different types of tissue, taking those sections and staining them on a microscope slide, and then analyzing the samples. The goals that I had set, such as being able to expand my scientific knowledge, being able to talk about it with others, and becoming more comfortable in the laboratory setting. My goals were all met by carrying out this project. I successfully took sections of a 3-month mouse diaphragm, stained it with Picrosirius Red, which allowed for collagen analysis, and gave me microscopy skills, as well as new skills with a software called ImageJ. The results that were obtained indicated that TRPC6 protein did not have a significant impact on the amount of collagen present when compared to the control (muscular dystrophy). This was determined based on the statistical data seen within the experiment. However, testing the same thing on different ages of mice could make a difference, and that is the proposed next experiment.