Short Study Tour

So thursday morning I got on a bus and drove off into the snowy abyss of Denmark. After about two hours of sleeping we arrived at our first destination in the city of Odense. We had a lecture and tour at the Medical Biotechnology Center at Syddansk University (Southern Denmark U).

This part is for the nerds...

The lecture focused on a protein found in the surfactant of the lung. The protein is called SP-D and is made up of a long weave of three collagen strands that is capped with a protein that is a trimer. The protein was thought to only be involved in recognizing the specially glycolized proteins on the surface of bacteria. This would then signal to phagocytotic cells and produce an immune response. When a knockout mouse was made, the mice had an increased risk of infection and an increased level of lipid build up in the lungs. They then found that SP-D was expressed in the epethelial cells of the circulatory system. So they devised a new hypothesis stating that the mice would have an increased risk of arthosclerosis when SP-D was not present. After running a study with mice on a high fat diet they concluded the opposite. SP-D knockouts had a lowered the risk of arthrosclerosis and also gained a large amount of weight. They realized that the two forms of SP-D, a tetramer on the cell surface and a extracellular monomer, regulated the rate of arthrosclerosis and lipid accumulation. So ultimately they developed a mouse model that would get fat but not develop arthrosclerosis.

Here is a picture of the lobby. Everything in the building was brand new and had about 7 groups working on every topic you can think of, from cancer to psychiatric drugs

We then had lunch and got back on the bus to visit another part of the University. Jesper Wengel presented his new and exciting discoveries about Lock Nucleic Acids (LNA) and Unlocked Nucleic Acids (UNA). This technology is directed at gene therapies and either locks, by adding an ether bridge on the sugar backbone of DNA, or unlocks, a ring opening of the sugar, to produce novel drugs. This lecture was interesting because it blended an enormous amount of chemistry with biology. We then had a tour of the facility and then drove to the hostel.

The middle is a rotovap that uses acetone and dry ice to help condense, pretty cold. The facilities are a prime example of danish design (top). The bottom picture is from the balcony of our room at the hostel. All the guys in my program stayed in the same hostel room which was quite big plus we had a awesome balcony. From the hostel we started to explore the town. I saw where Hans Christian Anderson was born and some cool statues. We then met for dinner at a nice danish restaurant and had all the food we wanted on the study programs tab. We then walked to the Orchestra. This was the first Orchestra I had ever seen and I would highly recommend going at least once in your life. The first piece was the danish composer Carl Neilson and depicted the movement of the sun across the sky. The second piece was written by a japanese composer to illustrate the constellations and mystical gods. It also had a guest appearance by a crazy drummer that took out his anger on a set of asian drums for about a half hour. The last piece was a long piece from another composer that I cant remember. All together the show was crazy cool. The strings section was only about 5 yards from our seats and we could see the hairs in the bows break because of how violently they were playing. Afterwards our program went to a little irish pub with cool decorations and drank a few beer. My favorite cheap beer was something called Tiger. It finished sweet and plus I came up with a good tagline to go with it, "Drink Tiger, RARRR!" Great night.

Short Study tour

Ight so I have to step up my game on this blog...

Im going to start givin you all the little stories that are makin this trip so much fun. But get ready because im going to stop censoring myself.

The school makes us take a short and long study tour where we go with our core group and tour europe by doing things that are relevant to our program. So tomorrow morning I'm going to hop on a bus at 830 and drive two hours to a town in the middle of denmark called Odense. This city got its name from the Nortic god Oden. In the morning we are going to a university to listen to a lecture on some medicines that have been produced in the past few years. Then we are going to a cool hostal on a lake where we are having a bonfire. Then we are heading to an orchestra. LONG DAY! My memory is a little weak on the rest of the trip but I think an art museum and pharmaceutical company are in order. Ill be sure to post pics and take notes.

Today was kinda rough. Two bottles of wine on a tues doesnt seem like a good idea the next day. I took a bus downtown and walked around for a couple hours. The sun was out and I walked on all the lakes. I saw a lot of pets out with their owners going for walks and it got me thinkin how much I would love a pet now. I contemplated getting a little puppy but realized that it would cost a lot and be a lot of work. So I walked home lonely.

The rest of the day kinda flew by. I got my buddies entire itunes and that took me over for a couple hours. Anyway, enough babblin. here is some pics

Blurrrrrr

Two weeks has flown by soooooo fast!

I have been going on adventures everyday. I hop on my bike and ride into a different direction and have seen almost the whole city already. The snow has been falling almost every other day too. They arent used to all the snow and suck at removing it. It takes about a day for the streets to clear after maybe three inches of snow. Apparently this is one of the worst winters they have had in years! There are four lakes in the center of copenhagen that are frozen over. The last time the lakes froze over was in 93. I heard a story of an older couple that asked one of my friends if the ice was safe to walk on. Once they got onto the lake the women yelled, "I'm free!" I guess that was a first for her.

Here is a map of copenhagen so you can find out where I have gone too.

View Copenhagen in a larger map

Europe so far

Hej from Københagen!

So after an eight hour sleepless flight I finally arived in copenhagen. Coming through the clouds just before landing was incredible. We got out of the plane around 730 and got on shuttles to go to orientation. Orentation was short and they got us on more busses to get to our housing. I am staying in the programs shared housing on a street called tåsingade in the østoport area just north of the city. All of the buildings we saw along the trip to the apartments were very very old and some as old as the US. My room has its own bathroom, sink, stovetop, and fridge. good enough for me! After a nap we got aquainted with the building a little and then we were free. I had to sleep. The RAs took us all out to a Thia resturant that had really really good food. Then we walked to a little cozy pub and spent a few hours getting to know each other.

The next day we had orientation all day. Starting at 930 in the morning with an opening ceremony in the old part of Copenhagen university. A quartet opened the ceremony with a classical peice. A couple speeches later in the magnificent lecture hall the quartet played another peice. Ive got a few pictures of the inside of the hall. Every wall was covered with a giant painting of a peice of history of the university. One painting depicted the students coming to fight for the city. Another depicted the delivery of the pope's approval of the university to the king. It seems like this place is filled with history everywhere I look. As the day went on I went to a Danish Survival course where our professor, a history teacher who was really laid back, answered any questions we had and took us for a short walk around the area. we came back and began learning how to speak a few danish phrases. Everyone was exausted by this point and he let us out an hour early. I got some lunch with my friend at a kabab house, soooooo good. There is any kind of ethnic food you could ever want here. That night everyone passed out early and tried to get up in the morning.

I couldnt sleep. I guess my head was still on US time. The next day I slept through all of my orientation and I felt great. That was all I needed. Another night out and lots of fun capped off that day.

Yesterday I missed a scavenger hunt in the morning and went to an orientation for my program in the afternoon. I wanted to get a bike really badly so my friend Zach and I went on a tour of copenhagen to find the cheapest bikes. After about an hour of walking we came to a small second hand shop that sold us solid bikes. They gave us little lights to put on the front and back of the bike so we wouldnt get hit by cars. Copenhagen is one of the most bike friendly cities, only behind Amsterdam. The bikes cost about 220 dollars US. They also agreed to buy back the bikes when our stay here was over. The bike ride home was a blast and very fast. Plus I got to see more of the city then I had in the few days I had been here.