Week 9: Drafting my Final Paper

Welcome back to my Senior Project blog! As a quick reminder, my research focuses on optimizing the production of Multilamellar Vesicles. These are microscopic bubbles that can deliver drugs and cosmetics through the skin and potentially replace painful injections. Over the past six weeks, I completed all my physical lab work by testing how different salt solutions affect the formation and yield of these vesicles. 

This week marked the beginning of the final phase of my project. I officially finished data analysis and am now focusing entirely on writing my final research paper. The goal was to take all my raw data, graphs, and hypotheses and combine them into a research paper and poster.

I decided to focus heavily on writing and to get my paper done early. I spent the first two days writing the entire formal paper and followed the standard scientific structure.

I started with the introduction with the goal of making audience familiar with the challenges that are encountered during vesicle production currently and holding back vesicle technology. I then detailed my methodology so other researchers could replicate my thin-film hydration process. The most important part was the results and discussion section, where I explained how my graphs definitively prove that single charge ions like Sodium create significantly higher and more uniform yields than double charge ions like Calcium.

Next week, I will send the paper to my internal and external advisors for feedback and begin my final revisions. I will also work on adding greater detail to my methodology and results section. Finally I will format my paper in the ACS format. 

Thanks for reading!

• Samahith