First 100 Days

Kidney Cancer New Pathway Discovery Project:

  • Obtained necessary approvals from both IRB and UT Southwestern Tissue Resource to begin the analysis of banked human renal cell carcinoma specimens.
  • Received Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center support.
  • Samuel performs valuable in silico analysis from publicly available databases.

Research:

  • Agreement on MTA with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
  • Silvia begins working at the bench on day 13.

Funding:

  • Received Endowed Scholar Award.
  • NIH KO8 Award transfer initiated.
  • Letter of intent submitted for Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Award.

UT Southwestern Mission:

Personnel:

  • All personnel complete necessary training (safety, radioactivity, mouse handling…).

Fellowships:

  • Samuel is awarded a postdoctoral fellowship.
  • Silvia submits proposal.

Recruitment:

  • Yeny and Nick join the lab.
  • Several candidates for postdoctoral positions interviewed.

Lab Operation:

  • Equipment and supplies arrive from Boston.
  • Lab space remodeling is completed.
  • Internet ports and phone lines activated.
  • Completed outfitting of the lab with fridges, freezers, microfuges, PCR machine, NanoDrop spectrophotometer, FPLC machine, hypoxia chamber, computers and printers.
  • Radioactive sublicense obtained.

Infrastructure:

  • Silvia compiles information for electronic databases.
  • Samuel establishes lab intranet.
  • Plasmid database and various other electronic platforms created by Samuel.
  • Yeny generates electronic inventories for cell lines, primers, and antibodies.
  • Nick adapts mouse database with capabilities for transferring information onto mouse cage cards.
  • Repositories created for centralized access to plasmids, glycerol stocks, primers, cell lines, and antibodies.
  • Yeny performs a cost assessment of frequently ordered reagents.

Mice:

  • Mouse strains from Dana-Farber arrive and successfully go through quarantine.
  • Animal protocol is approved.
  • Nick organizes mouse colony and implements PCR strategies for genotyping.

Lab Social Activities:

  • Lab hosts party for Department of Developmental Biology. A baby-shower is organized for Silvia. Celebration at Café Madrid of Yeny and Nick's joining the lab. Celebration of Samuel's fellowship award. First bowling outing at Main Event.

Community Service:

  • Nick and Jim volunteer at the United to Serve T.J. Rusk Middle School health fair.
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