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Hello everyone.

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I'm here today about
my summer interning

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at a neuroanatomy and behavior
lab at Northeastern University

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under the mentorship
of Dr. Rebecca Shanksy.

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So just to give you some brief
background into neuroscience

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and the types of regions we were
looking at-- what we focused on

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was this fear
circuit here, which

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you'll notice that there
are neural projections going

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through the prefrontal
cortex, down to the amygdala

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and vice versa.

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Also notice the connections
to the hypothalamus,

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which is important for
memory consolidation.

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And on [? the cumber ?]
side, there's

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very a related pathway called
the mesolimbic pathway,

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also as the reward
pathway, and this also

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involves having projections
from the ventral tegmental area

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to the TFC, back
to the amygdala,

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and it all kind of
connects in a circuit.

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The VTA in particular
is important,

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because there are
dopaminergic neurons that

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produce a lot of
dopamine, which is

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a very important
hormone for a lot

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of different normal processes.

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So then Shansky Lab's
main research focus

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was to look at these
neural connections

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between the medial prefrontal
cortex and the amygdala,

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and specifically to see what
sorts of sex differences

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there are and how this circuit
processes fear in response

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to stressful situations.

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So one of her main research
questions was to look at,

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how do hormones such
as estrogen modulate

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dopamine actions in the
MPFC, and how can this affect

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memory of a traumatic event?

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Some of some techniques
that the lab used--

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but I didn't necessarily
work with all of them--

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was that they used
confocal microscopy

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and immunofluorescence
to basically visualize

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neurons illuminate them
so you can look at them.

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And these are some of
the pictures they got.

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They're really pretty.

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You can see the dendrites,
the axon here, the dendrites

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all extending out.

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And though I didn't
get to do that,

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it was a really cool
thing to watch them do.

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The also used a CPhos, which
is a basically indirect marker

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for looking at
neuronal activity.

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But what I focused
on was correlating

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this structural information
with behavioral measures

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to identify potential markers
of resilience and vulnerability.

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So I've been talking
about all this stuff,

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but why does this matter
to us in the real world?

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What possible applications
could this have?

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So the medial prefrontal
cortex and the amygdala

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are frequently reported
to be sites of dysfunction

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in stress-related
mental illnesses

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such as major depressive
disorder and PTSD.

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So the field has
kind of hypothesized

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that this may be the result
of abnormal crosstalk

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between the two regions
I was talking about.

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And it's important because women
are also twice as likely as men

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to develop these disorders,
and surprisingly the National

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Institutes of Health
finally-- only just required

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scientists who do animal
research to include

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both sexes and their studies.

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And this can be
bad, because you're

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looking, say, to test
a drug, and you only

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test it in male animals,
when you could translate that

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to humans, a lot of times the
doses don't work out very well

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and there are other
adverse effects.

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Women experience higher rates
of average drug reactions

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than men do.

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So some of the daily
responsibilities

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I did in the lab was a mix
of daily lab maintenance,

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I made a lot of stock
solutions and a lot

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of [? paraphernelkai ?]
I also monitored

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t the rat estrous cycle, which
is what it these pictures

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are showing.

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It's similar to menstrual
cycles in humans,

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but it's a little bit different.

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It's only about four
day, and it just

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basically shows when they are
in periods of high estrogen

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progesterone.

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And how you do that
is you take a swab,

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and you look at their cells
underneath the microscope,

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and you just kind of
look and you're like,

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"Oh, this is estrous, because
the cells look like that."

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And then one of
my biggest things

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that I did this summer was that
I did an independent research

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project with another undergrad
running behavioral assays

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like the forced swim test,
and running for profusions

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and doing brain extractions.

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So my main research
focused this summer

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was to look at the sex
differences in these activities

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active versus passive fear
responses to a stressful event.

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So the main question we
pursued was, "Do female rats

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exhibit more active fear
behaviors than males when

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in a stressful situation?"

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And we hypothesized that
these females, based

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on previous research
lab had done

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and different tests, that they
would exhibit more active fear

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behaviors as opposed
to the passive ones.

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So the types of rats we
used were Sprague Dawleys

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and Long-Evans.

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They had done some previous
research with that,

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and we have to talk about
why we used them later.

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So the assay we used
this test called

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the forced swim test, which I
know sounds really terrible,

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but it's just
basically you put them

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in a cylinder full of
water and they swim around

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for 15 minutes, and
then we take them out.

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So for analysis, I used a mix
of hand-scoring and an automated

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computer software called
[? Ethogan ?] to automatically

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track their movement.

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It's a really cool
software, so that

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tell us basically how much time
were they spending swimming

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versus just kind
of floating there.

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So this is some of
our preliminary data

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that my PI actually just send
to me, so it's very exciting.

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But we haven't done a
lot of analysis on it.

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So on the Y-axis you have
percent, time, and activity

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and all the X-axis you have the
two different strains of rats.

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So basically, the Long-Evans
rats-- their data was weird,

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due to a mix of issues we had
in detecting their movement,

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and also just
possibly they're just

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differnt than Sprague Dawleys.

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Because in the first test-- we
ran the forced swim test twice,

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about a month apart.

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And the female Long-Evans
rats had more inactivity time

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than the males.

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Then it switched
during the second test.

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But the Sprague Dawley
data was really great.

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The males spent way more time
being inactive in the test than

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compared to the females,
and this was the case even

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in the second time.

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So we're really glad that
we had this good idea

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that the females are-- they
tend to be struggling more,

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they're swimming
more, and perhaps

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that indicates a
difference in how they

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respond to fearful situations.

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So reflecting back on my
internship experience,

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I really enjoyed working
in a lab setting, even

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more that I thought I would.

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I have a better idea
of my career path.

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As cool as it was to work
in an academic setting,

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I think I want to pursue
careers in industry, just

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in a different sense the
different types of research

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you can do and also
the different focuses

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of the research.

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I also learned to
face rejection,

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because when I was
applying, I probably

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sent out dozens
of emails to labs,

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and I got about four responses.

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Two were nos and two were
yeses, so I would just

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really encourage
everyone to just

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apply to anything
that interests you

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and just kind of
hope for the best.

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But you have to learn to
face that initial rejection.

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I also learned to
troubleshoot work

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through a lot of these problems,
because with the software

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we were using there were a lot
of times something wasn't quite

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working now right.

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We had to try something
new if something in the lab

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wasn't-- you know, we
couldn't like, "Oh,

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where do we get cylinders?

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Oh I don't know, let me just
go Google it really quickly,"

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that type of thing.

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And I'm also really grateful to
Mount Holyoke for providing me

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with a lot of the skills and
knowledge-- base knowledge

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that I got out of
everything that I did.

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I didn't necessarily know how
to do something with a profusion

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or how to make
paraformaldehyde a lot,

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but I was really
grateful that I was

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able to learn it very quickly.

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I was able to capitalize
on this opportunity.

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So this is my lab.

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We wanted-- we have
to get dim sum.

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That's Dr. Shanksy, right there.

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That's the grad student, Tina,
and the other undergrad, Jose,

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that lab tech who was
only there for a week,

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so I can't remember his name,
but [LAUGHTER] he's there.

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I'd also like to thank
Professor Jared Schwartzer here,

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because the work
I did in his lab

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really helped me, which I worked
with mice instead of rats.

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Personally, rats are
way better, I think.

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But I really learned
a lot from him,

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and I'm really
grateful for everything

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that he's mentored me through.

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