My site visit was at the Mount Sinai stem cell research lab. It was so cool. But also it was hard to understand. It was really hard to understand because I talked with lots of scientists that had fancy words like induced instead of reprogramed. I also got to see a lot of really cool things. Sadly I could not take any pictures, I could not take any pictures because I had to use a microscope to see them. I got to see human and mouse embryonic stem cells. Now you might be thinking what is such a big deal about embryonic stem cells? Well actually there are only 22 human embryonic stem cell lines in America. They are also the most powerful stem cells and can turn into many more types of cells than others.

One of the things that I learned in my site visit was that the genes are a major part of stem cell research. They are needed to conduct the way that stem cells and cells grow in human body. In the research with stem cells that is currently going on today, scientists are trying to control what and when stem cells differentiate and multiply so they need genes to do that task. This helped me a lot because when I was reading a book prior to my interview there was a whole chapter on genes and I did not understand why they had a chapter on it so I did not think that it was important and as a result I only took one note. Then I learned about it at the interview and so I plan to reread the chapter and then hopefully realize how important genes are in the world of stem cells. I also learned that stem cells need nutrients, oxygen, and a certain temperature of 36 to 37 degrees celsius to function properly and stay alive. Overall I learned a lot about stem cells and got to see a lot of really cool stuff like stem cells. I can’t wait to start my next post!