It was a long plane ride; probably one of the longest plane rides one can take. It was my first time flying such a long distance -- I had been to Washington D.C. and to Boston, but never had I been on a twenty-two hour flight to Australia. This trip to Geelong, a small city in Victoria, off of the Great Ocean Road in Australia, was a trip of firsts for me -- a first for everything. Never did I imagine that I, this sheltered undergraduate student, would leave her family behind for three months, and learn to cope with a different lifestyle and different people. When my faculty advisors, Dr. David Harris and Dr. Tom Tsang, from the department of Microbiology and Immunology suggested that I take the opportunity offered by the BRAVO! Program -- I was hesitant. Most undergraduates would not think twice about such an amazing opportunity -- but like I said, this was a first.
My trip to Geelong was about growing as an individual as well as an undergraduate researcher. During my stay I had the opportunity to work under the guidance and supervision of Dr. John Lowenthal, director of the Vaccines and Therapeutics Department at the CSIRO: Animal and Human Health Laboratory in Geelong, Australia. Through him, I was able to meet my “Australian family,” the other members of the lab and develop strong relationships with people who taught me a lot about Australian culture.
My project was to develop a novel modality to strengthen the immune system of naïve chickens susceptible to immunosuppressive diseases. The Australian poultry industry loses over fifty million dollars a year due to lack of production resulting from these opportunistic infections. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a method by which these diseases may be attacked. I worked with specific pathogen free chickens. These are birds free of any strain or virus found in the air. The birds were infected with Chicken Anemia Virus, which weakens the immune system and causes severe side effects -- the most severe being death. Non-infected or control birds were also present in this trial as a comparison of therapeutic efficacy. Blood, thymic lobes and spleen were extracted at day 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, 21, 25, and 28 post infection and stained with different combinations of monoclonal antibodies to determine which cell types are affected by the virus. This allowed us to determine a pathway of infection and also allowed us to target the specific cell types being infected prior to infection.
Unfortunately, the project was not completed during my stay, but my experience at the Animal and Human Health Laboratory was very rewarding. I learned several new techniques used in the field of microbiology and immunology. At the same time, my project enabled me to incorporate and involve the research that I have conducted in the Harris lab for the past two years. Currently, the Animal Laboratory is collecting the remaining data needed, and we will stay in contact with the hope of completing this study.
Living in a foreign country allowed me to learn, see and appreciate things that I never even thought about before. Some of the highlights of my stay were getting lost in the city streets or on my trips on the Metro, scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, seeing the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House, interacting with the indigenous people and making life-long friends. The Animal and Human Health Laboratory taught me about research overseas, it taught me the importance of science and research everywhere, and more importantly; Geelong made this sheltered undergraduate student grow as an individual and as an independent researcher.
I would like to thank my parents, family and friends for all their support because without them, I don’t think I would have had the courage to go abroad alone! I also want to thank my advisors Dr. David Harris, Dr. Tom Tsang, Dr. John Lowenthal and of course Genevieve Kenney, the BRAVO! Committee and Carol Bender, who made this trip possible.
Melba C. Jaramillo UBRPer in Dr. David Harris’s lab, Microbiology & Immunology.
Melba’s trip was funded by a grant from NIH to UA (TW00036)
It was a long plane ride; probably one of the longest plane rides one can take. It was my first time flying such a long distance -- I had been to Washington D.C. and to Boston, but never had I been on a twenty-two hour flight to Australia. This trip to Geelong, a small city in Victoria, off of the Great Ocean Road in Australia, was a trip of firsts for me -- a first for everything. Never did I imagine that I, this sheltered undergraduate student, would leave her family behind for three months, and learn to cope with a different lifestyle and different people. When my faculty advisors, Dr. David Harris and Dr. Tom Tsang, from the department of Microbiology and Immunology suggested that I take the opportunity offered by the BRAVO! Program -- I was hesitant. Most undergraduates would not think twice about such an amazing opportunity -- but like I said, this was a first.
My trip to Geelong was about growing as an individual as well as an undergraduate researcher. During my stay I had the opportunity to work under the guidance and supervision of Dr. John Lowenthal, director of the Vaccines and Therapeutics Department at the CSIRO: Animal and Human Health Laboratory in Geelong, Australia. Through him, I was able to meet my “Australian family,” the other members of the lab and develop strong relationships with people who taught me a lot about Australian culture.
My project was to develop a novel modality to strengthen the immune system of naïve chickens susceptible to immunosuppressive diseases. The Australian poultry industry loses over fifty million dollars a year due to lack of production resulting from these opportunistic infections. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a method by which these diseases may be attacked. I worked with specific pathogen free chickens. These are birds free of any strain or virus found in the air. The birds were infected with Chicken Anemia Virus, which weakens the immune system and causes severe side effects -- the most severe being death. Non-infected or control birds were also present in this trial as a comparison of therapeutic efficacy. Blood, thymic lobes and spleen were extracted at day 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, 21, 25, and 28 post infection and stained with different combinations of monoclonal antibodies to determine which cell types are affected by the virus. This allowed us to determine a pathway of infection and also allowed us to target the specific cell types being infected prior to infection. 
I learned several new techniques used in the field of microbiology and immunology. At the same time, my project enabled me to incorporate and involve the research that I have conducted in the Harris lab for the past two years. Currently, the Animal Laboratory is collecting the remaining data needed, and we will stay in contact with the hope of completing this study. 
Living in a foreign country allowed me to learn, see and appreciate things that I never even thought about before. Some of the highlights of my stay were getting lost in the city streets or on my trips on the Metro, scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, seeing the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House, interacting with the indigenous people and making life-long friends. The Animal and Human Health Laboratory taught me about research overseas, it taught me the importance of science and research everywhere, and more importantly; Geelong made this sheltered undergraduate student grow as an individual and as an independent researcher.