Finally, an update

School's out.  That means that I get very busy.  We normally get a couple med students each summer who want to do research.  This summer has been no different.  We have two students (and one high schools student) who will be here for the summer.  Both of the med students are very smart (obviously) and both have done a great job on their projects thus far.  I am losing both of my research residents at the end of the month but will be picking up another one at the end of the summer. 

I haven't written much because I have been doing a lot of animal work the past few months and that doesn't always lend itself to a public forum.  There are three projects that I am working on currently.  First, I am working on perfecting an orthotopic model of vestibular schwannoma in mice.  This has been very difficult because mice are small and there is a lot of complex anatomy (nerves, major blood vessels, etc...) to deal with during the surgical approach.  We have had some success but our mortality rates are higher that I would like.  We are still working on this project but I don't think my boss has much hope for it.  I did solve one of the problems we were having with regard to the surgical approach.  We were having problems retracting the tissue adequately so that the drill didn't catch tissue.  I designed a new hands-free retractor system that we are looking at getting patented.  It works well.  The second project I am doing is a nerve regeneration study.  The animal work itself is minimal but the data analysis is killing me.  There are so much data that I am spending hours trying to wade through it. The third project I am working on it completely different for me.  It is a cochlear implant study.  We are putting cochlear implants in mice to test effects of electricity on hair cell viability.  I am just getting this one started.  The surgery is difficult but rewarding. 

I am hoping to get back to some more basic protein work but that doesn't seem to be likely any time soon.