S-Stem Scholar Jaira Munoz Zavala's Blog

 MY MAJOR: FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST TOPICS IN FORENSICS: Three years ago, I did not know much about my career. I knew that involved autopsies. Also, I knew I needed to have a strong stomach—primarily because of the smell.  I just started to take forensic classes. So far, I’ve taken two courses: Introduction to Forensic Anthropology and Sociology of Murder. The laws behind every procedure are what surprised me (and also scared me). For instance, I taught an autopsy is an obligatory procedure in every death. However, there are different types of autopsies. In clinical autopsies, an autopsy is performed in a specific part of the body (not all the body).  Before I started this Major, I wanted to go to Medical school for Forensic Pathologist. However, I learned that now forensic anthropologists are being trained more. They don’t just work with bones but also decomposed corpses. After learning about this field, I decided to switch to this one. I thought that just identifying eve...

  Gratitude letter and past self advice People I'm thankful to:  I’m thankful to multiple people for helping me to get where I am today. First, I’m thankful to God. As a Science major, it is sometimes hard to defend my beliefs against some science facts. However, believing in a greater power is what helps me to move on in life.  I’m thankful to my parents, who gave me an education, home, and support. In Mexico, my parents enrolled me in private schools. My friend’s parents paid for everything they needed it. For me, it was normal to have parents who pay for everything. When I moved to America and enrolled in Independence High School, I realized how lucky I was. Most of my friends and cousins worked from an early age. My cousins started working when they were in elementary school. For most of them, it wasn’t an option. Their parents did not help them, and if they did, they had to pay their parents back. Once I started college, my parents wanted to pay for my education...

The future My Goals: For the last three years, my long-term goal was to be a forensic pathologist. Also, I wanted to do humanitarian forensics on the border of the country. I was hoping to use my art skills to do some forensic art in the absence of DNA for identification.  Nevertheless, during the pandemic, I started to doubt these plans. I feel more burnout. I realized that I needed more balance between school, work, and my personal life.  I should be graduating either in the Fall of 2022 or Spring of 2023. I’m almost done with my art classes for my Sculpture Bachelors. I still have more classes to take for my Forensic Bachelors.  1 YEAR GOAL: For the last couple of years, I’ve focused on surrealistic art. Most of the themes I used are the human body and plants. However, they are not accurate.  This past summer, I took a class on sculpting anatomy. I learned multiple skills to sculpt the body muscles and face. Now, this semester, I finally sculpted a real baby. My s...

This semester, I'm focusing on CHIT1.  CHIT1 is a gene and encodes a protein called Chitotriosidase-1, and is a member of the chitinase family. This is selectively expressed in activated tissue macrophages. As a biomarker  (it indicates the  severity or presence of some disease state) is the best  to monitor Gaucher disease from the three most commonly used. Also, it is a marker for macrophage activation in acute ischemic stroke. Chromosomal location  Cytogenetic Location: 1q32.1. 1q    = The long (q) arm of the chromosome 1 32.1 =  It is the position in the arm. Molecular Location: base pairs 203,216,079 to 203,229,673  Data and Picture Reference: Genetics Home Reference.  August 17th, 2020. CHIT1 gene, Chitinase1. Retrieved from: https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/CHIT1#resources Function:  Chitinases wo rks in both innate and adaptive immunity.  They are necessary for the following functions: Degrades chitin, chitotriose and...

On Saturday, February 8th, we worked did a second DNA with Sample 14.  These are the results of the DNA isolation done on 2/7/20. The results were not good, so we decided to do another DNA isolation of Sample 14.  We decided to use another kit different from last time. This one was the DNeasy UltraClean Microbial Kit. The steps in this kit were different from the Wizard Plus SV Miniprep. We continue using the same culture from Friday, thus now it was a 48hrs. We have used this kit multiple times. We usually repeat the first step (centrifuge 1.8 ml of microbial culture in order to have a pellet), However, this time we only worked with 1.8 ml instead of 5.4. We worked with only one bacteria culture, so we had to balance it with the same tubes but with distilled water instead.  These were the results of this DNA Isolation:

This is the fourth week. Today we worked with sample 14 from the previous experiments. Sample 14 is Deinococcus Pimensis. The bacteria were inoculated from a new bacteria colony. We worked with a 24hrs culture. On Tuesday 2/4/20, a gel was done with the DNA samples from last week. This is the gel with the ladder, samples 1, 7, 8, 14 and the blank (in that order). Sample 14 did not show results.  PICTURE CREDIT: CHAD ALBERT. First, we did a Gram Stain with sample 14 We used the "Wizard Plus S.V. Miniprep DNA Purification System" for A1330. This was the first time we used this type of miniprep. It was faster than the other miniprep we used before. Also, we were able to have more DNA.  Note: We didn't do nanodrop today. 

On Saturday of the third week, we finished doing DNA isolation for the rest of the DNA samples and prepared them for PCR. The samples we worked on were Sample 14 (Pimensis) and Sample 10 (Indicus). When we did the Nanodrop for these bacteria DNA, the results were not good for Indicus (they were negative). Here are the results: As a result, we only prepared the PCR tubes for samples 1,7,8 and 14. We pipetted 5 microliters of these DNA samples into the PCR tubes that were already prepared. Also, we pipetted 5 microliters of autoclaved distilled water for the blank : After the PCR tubes were ready, they were placed into the DNA amplifier for 1 hour and a half.