zebrafish surgery

today was pretty amazing. i am so out of my comfort zone, but i'm just really excited about this research program. on tuesday i started and just basically sorted some zebrafish embryos, taking out any unfertilized eggs, and putting the rest in the incubator. then on friday, i came back and we took the embryos, which were now 3 day old larvae, and sedated and anesthetized them with triacaine. this made them stop moving. then we could separate them and put some in a drug solution and some in a control solution. then, using a microscope, we made small fin wounds on their tails. this was pretty hard since they are only about a millimeter or two long at this point, so when you're looking under a microscope any little twitch makes the blade go all over the place. the funny thing about that is i've been getting this little twitch in my finger for some reason, and when he asked to see my hands to make sure i'd be able to do the precision cutting, my finger was all twitching and he got a little concerned, but then it went away and i showed him that i could do it. but it was really interesting getting to do this little microsurgery. the basic idea behind it is to make a wound and then track the migration of lymphocytes and leukocytes to the wound. you can figure out the effects of drugs on the healing process, and all of it is comparable to what goes on in the human body. i should have a better idea of everything in the next couple of weeks, but hopefully soon i can go on my own and start doing my own experiments. i might even get some money out of it, if i get research funding. if not, i'll just get a paper route.