Week Two: Orren Shachaf

Compared to last week, this week was more research-oriented than clinic-focused. When meeting with patients this week, I saw a couple interesting cases, including one individual who tore his lower biceps tendon while riding a mechanical bull; his injury occurred about two weeks from this Friday, when he will undergo surgery—I learned that, for tendon tears, it is important to conduct surgery sooner rather than later, as the tendon will continue to retract over time, making finding it and its subsequent repair more difficult. Additionally, I observed multiple injections of hyaluronic acid gels into the knee joint, with one patient having ~26 mL of synovial fluid removed from her inflamed/swollen knee prior to the injection. Regarding research activities, I assigned fibrosis scores to H&E-stained mouse knees from a study investigating the effects of EGCG on fibrosis (triggered by single hind limb immobilization). Additionally, I worked on the development of an immunohistochemistry protocol for the staining of urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR), which is a cell-surface protein widely induced during senescence. For the writing of this protocol, I was able to utilize a protocol from my lab in Ithaca that I have successfully performed and am familiar with.