Cell & Tissue Technology Weekend Getaway - Diego Burbano

After receiving the chips back from wire bonding, there are a few more steps before we can test them. First comes epoxy painting, then the second etching, and lastly sterilization. Now the chips are ready for cell culturing: ventricular rat cells will be seeded on the fibronectin coated chip and allowed to grow for three days. During this time, the gripers close around the cells, ideally enclosing only one cell each. On day three, we record extracellular action potentials with the electrodes embedded in the grippers, and we stain the cells with Fluo-4 in order to image the calcium fluxes around the cells. After obtaining all this data, we look for closed grippers with a cell inside, and try to match the electric signals with the images. Right now, I’m pushing to use another imaging technique, confocal microscopy, since it provides better temporal resolution needed to correlate it with the extracellular recordings. In the meantime, outside of the lab, I’m writing the necessary Matlab scripts to analyze the data. Specifically, we need to filter the signal, detect action potentials, sort the voltage peaks, and calculate the difference in firing time between electrodes of the same gripper.

These past two weekends I have travelled outside of Belgium. Kevin and I visited Copenhagen for a few days, and the crossed Øresund Bridge to Malmö, Sweden. Copenhagen was expensive, but we bought a Copenhagen Pass which allowed us to go to several museums, tours, and use public transportation for the whole duration of our stay. Tivoli Gardens, the second-oldest operating amusement park in the world, the Louisiana Museum, and the street food by the waterfront are some of the experiences I will never forget. Malmö was rainy and quiet, which made for a good, relaxing last day before coming back to work.

Last weekend was CTT Weekend (the group I work in, “Cell & Tissue Technology), a once-a-year retreat with most of the group. We rented a house on the coastline of Zeeland, in the Netherlands. Even though one of the days it was rainy, we still had lots of fun playing games inside, going to the beach at midnight, barbecuing under the porch, and relaxing in the sauna.