String Theory (Brain Edition)

What if your brain cells were thought of to be connected in a string manner with each cell having slightly different characteristics and as they connect as a network it becomes like a tangled ball of yarn, with each cell touching and signaling resulting in what makes us different neurologically. If you picture each of us starting out with a long piece of yarn (each fiber a cell) containing a slightly different chemical signaling makeup (think of a rainbow colored yarn where the color fades into each other) then you can imagine how a slight change in a protein expressed or a chemical released in each cell can contribute to different networking make up. Each of us have a brain network, or have the string tangled up differently to make up the shape of our brains. Different connections of cells give us our uniqueness and make up our memories and give us our function as human beings. We are somewhat similar and that is why different areas of our brains are active during some activity. We know that there is more to that and that we are all different. Why are some people better at math? Maybe some area of cells are connected to a different area of cells in a way that helps them think of numbers a certain way. We know that this makes sense, but I want to know the differences on the cell signaling level. Thinking about the cells as a string could help us characterize and organize which cells connecting to which means what. If the green cell connects to the pink cell, what does that mean? What if the green cell is connected by two other cells in between? It takes longer for it to communicate, making it harder to carry out that task.

Just an idea that came to me. Maybe this is some way to visualize brain networks? To me visualizing it with all of the cells in chaos just confuses me.

Exploring My Soul

I love Biology. I like looking at life all around me, watching it, wondering all sorts of things about this being I am watching. Constantly; trees, insects, animals, humans. Not just asking things like, “How is the water being consumed by this creature being distributed in the body?”, but things like, “Are these biological reactions that cause me to feel sad also happening in any other animals?”, “Are there other hormonal and chemical reactions going on that make them feel things that I have never felt before?” You would think so since ingesting drugs makes humans feel things they usually don’t naturally.

Of course there are answers to these questions. But we do not know every single thing about every molecule, protein, hormone, and further back gene, epigenetics, and all sorts of other factors that go in to life and why things happen the way they happen. Every gene being expressed, every protein interacting, every cell that interacts, every signal transduction cascade… We have not even discovered all of the species of the world yet and probably never will (Just trying to make a point Phylo people!! You can do it!) . I want to learn as much as possible. What do we know? What can we find out from testing things? What can we discover?

My passion lies in wondering about the most ridiculous things and having fantastical ideas. What’s even more satisfying is knowing that other people are thinking of similar things and actually doing them in science. I am BRCA 1 positive, which means that I have a high chance of getting really aggressive cancer at any time. It also means that I have lost a lot of the best people in my family to cancer. I have thought about cancer and wanting to be rid of it. I had a journal where I wrote ideas about how to control cancer cell growth and proliferation. WHy not make the cancer cells glow and take those suckers out ASAP? How about the magnetisomes that microorganisms have to orient themselves North or South? Maybe being able to differentiate and target cancer cells in the body, inserting a magnetisome and then having small portal at different points in the body have a magnet to pull the cells there and take them out would work? Well of course now I see all of the problems that come along with these ideas, but I was younger and I think this shows that I care about solutions.

Although I would LOVE to cure cancer, I know that my passion lies in the little things in biology that turn out to be big things. Things aren’t usually discovered directly, but indirectly because of a science “accident”. I really do love animals and nature, and I am fascinated with cell biology. Where do I go from here? I spend my time in my molecular biology lab, and then some times I go and volunteer at the aquarium to quench my thirst for observing nature. I love school and solving puzzles and riddles. Seems like I would be perfect for biology research.

I am not good enough right now. My GPA in college sucked. This is when I was losing all of my family members and on top of that my step dad was treating me inappropriately for years. I had a lot of shit going on. But I still struggled with dealing with life and I made it through. I fought through that and I have a much better appreciation for life and how important your life’s passion and work is. I don’t want to waste a second of my life on petty things, even though it will happen sometimes because I am human.

I am trying to build myself up on paper, and build my legs up even more for rockiness ahead. I am working in a lab and am so grateful that I am getting to do this. This means I can still work towards my passion in life. I can prove to myself that I can do this. I don’t know how I will get there, but someday I will be able to wake up every morning and be able to work on/with/observe biology, life in a way that will help solve some minuscule or immense problem in the world.

Science ❤

“In an age of i…

“In an age of increasingly mechanized production, the genesis of scientific knowledge remains an unteilding, obstreperously hand-hewn process. It is among the most human of our activities. Far from being subsumed by the dehumanizing effects of technology, science remains our last stand against it.”

—Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 

Potential Mentor??

Potential Mentor??

SACNAS 2013

So… I went to SACNAS and it was awesome!! I got to talk to some schools about graduate programs. It was in San Antonio which was way cooler than I thought it would be. We were in the Hyatt on the riverwalk. It was so lively at night and I got to bond with my fellow PREP Scholars. 

The first school I talked to was Berkeley. I talked to a man there named David Weisblat and he knew my mentor Christopher Johnston. I also talked to University of Washington which sounds amazing! They have a whole Sanchez clan up there  I also got a folder full of information from The University of Illinois at Chicago. They said they were desperate for Biology students. Now I am starting to think that I will be able to choose which school I will go to and not just go to the first one that accepts me.

Even though I am a molecular cell biologist in New Mexico I would love to work with marine life. COSEE is the Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence. They have a ton of internships that are really interesting. The one I saw that I am most interested in is the one at the Smithsonian Marine Station. It’s a paid internship 🙂

What am I going to do????

    

Hello World

I wanted to say hello to my new blog (I’m a few years too late, but I want to get started on this). Better late than never! I hope this will be a good experience. Let’s see where this blog takes me (like anyone cares)… I do!   :0