This week, I sourced human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) from the Rafii lab and am culturing them to co-culture them with disassociated islets and reaggregate them into spheroids. The isolation of these islets will occur next week, and I am expanding/growing these cells so that they are ready for use then.
Later, I shadowed the bariatric clinic and observed their surgeries. I saw a total of four different procedures:
- Single Anastomosis Duodeno-Ileal Bypass (SADI) Surgery
- Sleeve Gastectomy
- Hernia Reversal
- Cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal due to risk of infection)
I was particularly interested in the SADI and sleeve gastectomy procedures, as gastric bypass surgery was something I read about a lot in a molecular nutrition class in the Spring 2025 semester. These two procedures aim to help patients lose weight by removing parts of the GI tract to decrease the amount of food and calories the patients intake. Gastric bypass surgery can help patients lose up to 40% of their body-weight, which is so much more significant than to GLP-1 agonists which use has been standardized in the clinic. While the weight loss effects are well documented, it is still unclear what changes happen on the molecular/cellular/protein level, and much of the current research in the molecular nutrition field is still trying to parse out these systemic effects. It was a very full circle moment to see these surgeries being performed in front of me.
Moving onto next week, I want to observe more of the bariatrics clinic. In addition, I will practice the islet isolation protocol and do my first attempt at making HUVEC-islet aggregate spheroids to test out my hypothesis about co-culturing the two leading to higher insulin secretion.
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