Week 6: Eleana

This week marked the end of our co-culture experiment. Monday, after fixing the cells over the weekend we performed flow cytometry. We were able to collect the conditions of our experiment and have multiple replicates. Tuesday we began analyzing this data with Flow Jo. Which requires having compensation controls to help account for any flurochrome spillover which can occur in color channels. We then began setting up for the repeat of this experiment by making more alginate and designing the next experimental setup which will be a repeat of this experiment, and the beginning of our experiment with a breast cancer line and a cell tracking experiment. Wednesday, we placed some breast cancer cells into culture and started making hydrogels. Thursday, we headed back to pathology and covered one case of a patient who had a return of breast cancer after many years that changed type. After pathology, I presented our preliminary data at the Vanpouille-Box meeting, and got insight on how to deal with our data to discover more trends. So far from the analysis, our hydrogels help to proliferate and make our T-cells less exhausted compared to a normal plate coating (antibodies on plate that activate T-cells). We then functionalized are gels with antibodies. Friday, we began T-cell extraction from our cells and seeded them onto their plates. I am continuing to analyze the data and look forward to sharing the results on Tuesday!