vaginal prolapse

So this summer, I'll be doing a summer research internship with a physician/research in the urology department of my school. I'm really excited about this internship because I'll be able to see how a real, practicing physician/surgeon also balances research.

His specialty is female urology, in particular vaginal prolapse. His week is half surgery, half research.
This week, I was able to observe some of his surgeries and part of a hysterectomy. I wasn't able to observe the full surgery treating prolapse because part of my job is to take the tissue from the anterior vaginal wall which he removes for the procedure then test the tensile strength of it using this big, fancy Instron machine. I, and the research student before me, aren't really enthusiastic about this study. First, the measurements are pretty crude and very prone to human error and variance between testers. My second task is to help my PI take elasticity measurement of the prolapsed tissue in vivo. This is pretty neat. The one problem, though, is that the machine is so bulky that the elasticity measurement can ONLY be taken for a prolapsed vagina - it's too large to take measurements for normal vaginal tissue. This unfortunately means that he has no control measurements. However, fortunately, there is a new model of machine coming out that is much smaller and thus hopefully will allow for in vivo measurements to be take in a non-prolapsed vagina.

What I really would like to try and start this summer with my PI is to see if there are other ways we can use the vaginal tissues that we collect. For example, are there any biochemical assays we can do (mRNA assays, microchip analyses, etc.). I mean, we have FRESH, HUMAN tissue! There must be something more we can do than just obtaining its tensile strength. We can even use one side of the vaginal wall for physical measurements and then the other side of more biochemical measurements? The problem is, those tests cost money... I don't know what his budget is like.

I worked for a year at a pretty well-established, large laboratory (the PI has been recently elected into the National Academy of Sciences and he will also run a major research administrative position at the university). This lab... had a lot of money. I could basically order kits and procedures that costs in the hundreds of dollars.. even thousands.. range, and it was completely acceptable. So I guess in a way, I'm fairly spoiled in terms of freedom to pursue any random research interest. BUT, let me tell you, my work with him did open another field for him to pursue... a phenotype he's never seen in his knock-out mice involved weight loss. That's pretty good, right? for a recently undergrad graduate to do in a year. Anyways, enough about myself, more about research.

But yea, those are my aspirations for the summer.
And I'm really glad I'll be able to work with him throughout the year. I hope I can produce good, productive results for both my PI and myself.