Karen Khaykin- Blog Post 1

 Hello Everyone!

My name is Karen Khaykin and I am a current MPH/DVM student at the Foy Lab. I am currently working on fulfilling my Capstone requirement for my MPH, which has driven me to join the West Nile Serosurveillance project. This is a joint project between RaHPVEC and CSPH aiming to evaluate the seroprevalence and seroincidence of WNV in Northern Colorado. 

Personally, I have pretty limited experience with lab work. While I previously volunteered at the Veterinary Diagnostic Lab within the Parasitology section and gained experience in ELISAs and IFAs, I have never done cell culture or work with viruses, so I am super excited for the opportunity this summer.

This week has been pretty slow as we have been waiting for IRB approval. However, I worked on creating some maps for neighborhoods we plan to canvas using QGIS, which I have never used before! 

Next week, I am planning on coming in and learning how to do cell culture and creating viral stocks which I am absolutely looking forward to. 

Below is one of the maps that I created, and while it's quite primitive, I am still proud of how it came out.

- Karen