Fluorescent vesicles under hypergravity
In brief
A team of students came to ESTEC in the Netherlands to perform their proposed experiment at the LDC (Large Diameter Centrifuge) after being selected for the Spin Your Thesis! programme. The students set out to study the workings of the passive transport mechanisms of glucose uptake in Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) at off-nominal gravity.
In-depth
Due to the distance between the students, the pandemic and Brexit, the students were only able to meet once after the summer school and all saw each other for the second time at the SYT! campaign, which had been postponed to accommodate the delays incurred. Luckily, the team was finally able to attend the 3-day campaign last week.
Setting up an experiment can be challenging; it does not always work out like you envisioned it. Team Noahs Arc came into some setbacks on day one of their campaign. As a result, they had to re-assess their experiment and what they would focus on. While their experiment not yielding the results they intended to collect, the students still learned a great deal. “I have learned a lot about myself and about how to design an experiment” said one of the students. It is important to learn from mistakes. This is also emphasized by one of the students, “These unexpected issues taught me a lot about troubleshooting.”
On the last day, a team member said, “This was my first hands-on experiment during my studies, and I learned a lot.” The campaign itself has concluded but the work has not, there is still a lot of work to be done. The data that was collected during the hypergravity experiment need to be analysed and documented.
The employees working at the LDC and at ESA Academy enjoy working with the students and watching their projects grow from initial designs through to completion, and publication. “Every year, Spin Your Thesis! students are eager to perform top-quality science experiments on this state-of-the-art centrifuge”, said Nigel Savage, Programme Coordinator for university student experiments. “Students will sometime encounter challenges and difficulties that also occur in every day working life and these have to be surmounted to reach the end goal. Noahs Arc were faced with a deluge of issues. We are confident that their first ‘professional’ encounter was positive for them and that they will pursue their career in research.”
If this spiked your interest in the hands-on programmes offered by ESA Academy or if you have an experiment you would like to perform in altered gravity environments, then click here to have a chance at performing your investigations at one of the platforms available for student experiments at ESA Academy.