So WHAT do you do?

I have had a lot of people ask me exactly what it is I do at the Colorado Genetics Lab. I will try to explain it as simple as I can! First off, I am called a Cytogenetic Technician. Cytogenetics is the study of chromosomes. Chromosomes sort of "hold" all your DNA and genes. So by studying someone's chromosomes, we can find out what is wrong with them.

I work in the Postnatal Department, so every patient has been born. They can be a few hours old, or many many years. The most common types of Postnatal cases are:

1. Babies that were born within the last few days that have visual abnormalities such as webbed fingers/toes, Down Syndrome eyes, small heads, mixed genitals, etc.
2. Children ages 3-10 that are having learning disabilities, usually autism.
3. Adults that are having infertility problems.
4. Adult women that are egg donors. All donors in Colorado must have a genetic screening.

The process starts when we receive a green top tube of blood. We separate the blood into 3 different tubes, and add different things to them to make the blood cells "grow." Growing is really just when each cell splits into two (and those two split into two more, and so on). After 3 days of growing we "harvest" the cells. Harvesting stops cell growth, then starts it again to synchronize all the the cells. This process requires lots of timers to add chemicals at very specific time intervals over the course of about 5 hours. Once they are harvested, they are "dead" in a sense that they can't reproduce anymore, and are just "frozen" at a specific state in the reproductive cycle.

Next we put the cells on a microscope slide, and analyze them under the microscope. Once the analysis is complete, you have made a karyotype, which is a map of all the person's chromosomes. They are then compared to what the human chromosomes are supposed to look like. Every single person should have the same 23 chromosomes, so once you learn them, abnormalities should be easy to see. The finished product that we give to the doctor looks like this: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucbhjow/medicine/images/human_karyotype.gif

Right now, I am in charge of the Postnatal Wet Lab, so I am the person who does the set-up and harvest. Sometime in the next year I will learn how to make slides, and how to analyze the chromosomes. I take "chromosome class" 2 times a week, and have learned 19 of the 23 chromosomes. I'm sure this explanation just confused you all even more, but it really is fun and interesting! I love it :) I've been known to say my perfect job "wears a lab coat, gloves, and goggles" which I do, and I said I "wanted to be the person that does stuff to your blood after you get it taken" and I do that too. So I guess I found what I was looking for even though I had never heard of cytogenetics before.

~*~ Ashley ~*~

Dog Days

This morning we took Lilliann to the Bark Park. It is an area of the park that is fenced in so you can let your dog off the leash. There were about thirty other dogs there, and she had a blast. The first 10 minutes she chased the other dogs around, and played with a tennis ball. The rest of the time she just laid down! There were four other boxers there today. It is really funny because they seem to know they are the same breed. They played together the whole time. Lilliann was really good with all the dogs and all the people. We were kind of worried she would be a handful, but she was perfect! It was only about 15 minutes away from our house, so we will probably take her there often.














This afternoon we went to visit our new puppy Tinkerbell. We get to finally bring her home next Friday! When we got there and were walking towards the puppy pen, ours came right up to the side and started wagging her tail like crazy. The other puppies kept biting us, so we took ours out to play with her. She wasn't as into us as she was last time, she just wanted to explore! We played with her for about an hour, then went to put her back. Boy did she not want to get in there! She was really sad when we walked away. If I would have been an emotional person, I probably would have cried the way she was looking at us walk away!

~*~ Ashley ~*~

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog! I have wanted one of these since we moved to Colorado! I think it easily keeps everyone updated without having to make so many phone calls! Steven always said no it was dumb, but then he surprised me by making this on Friday for me. I am excited!

We were rudely awakened this morning at 7:00 a.m. by every construction machine imaginable being driven down a road with "no construction traffic" posted. All of the bedroom windows in our building and the building across from us face this road. This went on for about an hour, but we were wide-awake by this time. We watched some cartoons, and I ended up falling back asleep on the couch.

We went to a place today called 16th Street Mall. We had Jimmy Johns for lunch, which we have been missing from Cincinnati. Then we went to the Denver Library which has SEVEN stories! It took us nearly an hour to find what we were looking for. I have been reading at my lunch break, and while I wait for Steven to pick me up, which lets me read a book a week. I will get good use of the library now! Next, we went to an art store and bought six canvases and an easel. They were buy one get one free, so we stocked up! We have three paintings in mind that we would like to make, so we will have to see how long it takes us to get that accomplished. The last one I painted took almost a year...

We planned to take Lilliann to the bark park today, but we couldn't find it! We spent about 2 hours driving around, but it was nowhere to be found. When we got home, Steven looked it up again, and drove to go find it while I made dinner. He found it that time, so we will have to take her tomorrow!

~*~ Ashley ~*~