Merry Christmas! Love, ROS Assay

Many of you who know me know that I have been battling with this horrible and unreliable assay in the lab for over a year now. I have gotten some useful data, but it was messy, and I have been trying to get "just one more" experiment to help the statistics (good science, right?) for about 6+ months. [Note: The assay measures ROS = Reactive oxygen species produced in response to exposure to a chemical, like pesticides in my case]

Well, ladies and gentlemen, IT FINALLY WORKED!

Fig. 1. Me on 12/15/10

I won't quite say that I'll never have to do this assay again, because that's likely not true. And I also won't say that this means it will work consistetly from now on. BUT, this did work correctly after I changed some things and eliminated some steps, which is very promising for future use. YAY!

In other news, it's almost Christmas! I love Christmas. I am flying home to the family on Tuesday and I'm super excited. It's always a little crazy and stressful seeing all the fam, but Christmas always makes up for all that. Especially Christmas Eve and the 95464575 types of fish we have (ok, more like 6 or 7), but it's definitely my favorite holiday ever. It also helps that I get to see my neice and nephew (one who just turned 4 today! and the other who is already walking around, respectively), and my step-sister whom I haven't seen in over a year! Please refer back to figure 1 for approriate emotional response.

I'll try to keep everyone updated a bit more now that this quarter is over (and that dreaded Biopharm class is complete).

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and much love (from me, and the ROS assay).

Because she is fabulous

"And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women—except, of course—those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape 'kit 'n' stuff.' But for everybody else, it's a win-win. Unless you're a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years—whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know—actually, I take it back. The whole thing's a disaster."

-Tina Fey, upon winning the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Monday.

In other news:

1. The Kinect (for Xbox) is awesome.
2. I'm in a major lab funk.
3. I can't wait for Christmas (except, I can, because of the absurd amount of things that need to get done before then)
4. This biopharmaceutical class is driving me batty.

A wee bit of panic, a large dose of stress

Feeling a bit like this guy today:

I just was informed that I have to prepare a presentation and data to present to the next meeting (Dec. 3rd) for my training grant. Initially, I wouldn't go until next May, but they suddenly rearranged the list. A long way off, you may say.  WRONG.  Wrong, mostly because the way things work with my work and in this lab these days, a month might give me one or two usable experiments. MIGHT is a key word there.  Without more data, I've really nothing new to show for myself since the last meeting in May.  That is pathetic, and it will only seem as such in front of some important people.  Gah.

I'm also working on this big project for that Biopharmaceutical Development class I previously mentioned. The class is super interesting, still, but this project is a beast and we had pretty little direction on how and what to do.  Basically we are just designing a whole plan for testing and developing a new drug (ours is an bivalent antibody for use in Chron's Disease and other Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD)). Pretty overwhelming.

In some better news, the contamination seems to be gone.. for now. I guess that's a good start.

Wake up call

Girlfriend's mom is visiting for a while.  Awesome perks about having Girlfriend's mom here for extended amounts of time include (but are not limited to):

1. I get to practice my Spanish.
2. She often cooks at like 7am to make us lunch for the day. 

Today, however, there was a little mishap in the cooking process and the fire alarms started blaring at 6:30am. Talk about waking up in a panic.

Alas, it was just some smoke from frying up some chicken, but poor Doggie was NOT happy about this.  He really hates the fire alarms and proceeds to shake in fear after they subside. No one was hurt, though, and there were no flames to be put out, which was great.  Although, it really made me consider having an escape route since our room is on the third floor and the kitchen on the 1st... we need one of those ladder things that hook on to the window and allow you to escape:

Kidde Fire Escape Ladder


 Not that a townhome would have this anywhere, but buildings in Seattle are never like this:

I'll let you know when we have our first fire drill.

Contamination 7, Lab 1

We've been having serious contamination problems in our primary cell cultures for the past two months. I can't do any of my experiments without my astrocytes!

Cool astrocyte (not mine).

It's winning and it must be stopped.

Obama-rama!

Guess who I saw on Thursday?!  That's right, you astute readers, I got to see President Obama speak at the University of Washington campus on Thursday in support of Senator Patty Murray. I think his official plan in Seattle was to discuss women voters and federal spending, but it always helps to tell people to get out and vote.

The line around the Heck Ed Pavillion was crazy long and I didn't think my friend and I stood a chance at actually getting into the arena, but persistence and waking up early paid off!  We had seats and they were not too shabby either.

View from our seats

We love digital zoom

His speech was very good, as usual. He's generally an excellent, charismatic speaker, who actually sounds intelligent when he speaks (refreshing).  He had this analogy that I've heard he's used in a few other places about a car being driven into a ditch by the republicans. It was a pretty spot-on analogy, stating that the Dems are in the ditch pushing the car, and the Reps just wave from the sidelines, saying 'no' when asked if they'd like to help.  And the kicker, Obama says, is now that the Dems finally made some headway and got the car up and out of the ditch, the Reps want the keys back!  Pretty perfect. 

So America, when you want to go forward, as Obama so nicely pointed out, what do you do with your car?  You put it in D, not R. GO VOTE!!!

Obama at Top Pot donoughts.

"Fearlessly ask stupid questions" - H. Stewart Parker

I've found a new woman to add to my "awesome women to admire" list.  (When I actually come up with that oficial list, I'll let you know). H. Stewart Parker, the founder and former CEO of Targeted Genetics, recently spoke a bit on "Targeting Biotech Success" in my class on biopharmaceutical product development. The class is awesome mostly because of all the really interesting and successful people from local biotechs etc. that come to lecture on the subject for the week. 

Parker is considered somewhat of a pioneer of the biotech industry since she rocked a start-up (Immunex) when the whole industry was really nothing but start-ups and Genetech (circa 1980). What I really liked about her was her demeanor and her work/life philosophy.  She has this eloquent southern accent which makes you feel like she's both about to sit you down to have a stern "come to Jesus meetin" and offer you some sweet tea and a seat in the shade. 

Some of what she talked about in her lecture revolved around what she called her "Genes for Success."  Some of the more notable genes include: the Unabashed gene, the fearless, the marathon, the fundraising, and fun-raising genes. Besides this being cute and clever, it was SO refreshing to see a) a successful women who really worked her way up from entry level to CEO in the industry and b) someone in that position of power who also values (and finds vital) personal sanity, emotion, and passion to their success in life. (Plus, "the marathon gene" is kind of essential in most aspects of life, especially in the endurance challenge that is grad school)

Besides advocating for asking 'stupid' questions, she adds that being "unabashedly optimistic, naive, and emotional" is essential to learning everything you need to know in order to move forward on a given task, and are all attributes she includes in her personal success story.

Why does this make me feel like danzig, you ask? Because, in my opinion, the culture of academia and a lot of Science/Industry/most jobs in general is one that does not look kindly on those who ask 'stupid' questions, lest you be admitting some sort of doubt in your work or intelligence (nevermind the fact that asking said questions usually leads to progress when searching for or understanding the answers). Because including emotion in your work is apparently one big "no-no," since letting yourself be affected by criticism about something you pour all your efforts into on a daily basis is somehow seen as weak or inappropriate.

It's just really nice to see someone who manages to balance those things. I'm getting better at thickening my skin (somewhat) and taking criticism in stride, but doing so while trying to maintain my inquisitive and often outspoken sense of self is not always easy. The degree to which one must keep an air of certainty at all times here in academia is really difficult for me to comprehend. To know that maybe it's not neccessary to do that ALL the time is reassuring.  Hats off to you, Stewart Parker.

"Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business is a 1938 classic children's book by Esphyr Slobodkina. It's a sly take on the saying, 'Monkey see, monkey do.'" -Wikipedia
 "And is awesome."- MadLabRat

Intellectual Ventures

In efforts to network, since it's all the rage, I try to be an active member of the Association of Women in Science (AWIS).  They are actually a great national organization with many local chapters across the country, spanning a variety of disciplines in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields to promote and foster networks of women in science.  I have gotten to do some volunteer work with young girls in science through them, as well as get to meet some interesting (and potentially useful) people at their networking events. Hopefully some time in the next year, I'll be editing for their magazine and getting some experience in the writing world (experience outside of this glamorous blog, of course).

The most recent event was last night at this company called Intellectual Ventures. As their website touts, they are a company that works to promote and participate in 'inventing.' While the company has their own state-of-the-art labs and do some 'inventing' in-house, they tend to take on a lot of projects from others to perfect, prove, and patent their inventions.  It's a pretty cool, relatively new company.

Hbar/2

It's been a pretty boring week here in the lab.  The upside to this is getting to listen to the awesomeness of "The XX" station on Pandora.  The Xx - "Islands"

Other than the week being boring, it's been relatively unproductive, much to my chagrin. Some cells I had to image ended up looking pretty shitty, if existent at all.  This is frustrating on many levels. For one, these experiments take about 2 weeks each, and (why don't we ever say "for two"?) also because I am actually really curious to know the results of these experiments.  Their results could be potentially exciting and make me -gasp!- want to do more experiments!  Imagine that... interest in my work.

Aside from this being a pretty normal occurrence-- things not really working-- I really have a hard time deciphering when experiments "don't work" (meaning something legitimately goes wrong: conditions were unfavorable, etc) or when I did something wrong.  This uncertainty is maddening because unless it's an obvious mistake or blatant contamination of the cells, it's very difficult to tell if I'm truly just a 'bad' lab scientist or these assays/protocols are imperfect.  While there's an excellent chance the latter is true (as most human-made things are far from perfect), I can't help but feel like I am doing something wrong or not seeing something that I could and should change.  If I can't figure it out, then I can't change it, and I keep repeating the same mistakes. 

How is this cycle productive?  I don't know if it makes me feel better or worse that this is a seemingly normal feeling for most lab-based graduate students.....

See:

and

The not-so-veiled reference to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in the title of this post is because I feel like that principle comes up in life a whole lot. My interest in quantum mechanics sprouts from a great professor of physical chemistry back at UMass, and for a love of the duality of electrons (or anything). Perhaps that's a Gemini thing.

Anyway, without delving into details, the principle says it is impossible to simultaneously determine certain pairs of physical properties to a high degree of acuity. There is a limit to how certain you can be of these two things (momentum and position of a particle/wave, in PChem) at any given time. While this is not really what we're talking about on a macro scale, with life or experiments, I feel it's relatable. I often feel like it's impossible for me to know much with a high degree of certainty.  I'm skeptical and somewhat doubtful of everything, as I'm someone who likes to analyze everything.  There are times when this is a good thing; scientific progress, for instance, requires these traits. And then there are times when it's disastrous-- like when I'm too doubtful of myself.

So, how much doubt is healthy skepticism, leaving room for analysis/improvement..and how much is just flat out hazardous to one's sanity and respectable self-assurance?

The Blessing of Old Friends

Curly Lauren came to visit this weekend!  It was fantastic.  We did a lot of things like this:

As well as rode the ducks and ate a lot. Lauren and I love to eat a lot, so that was enjoyable.  She also got to watch me "do science" a bit on Friday, which she seemed to be pretty excited about.  It's nice to be able to show (read: impress) people with my lab skills and fancy shakers and pipets. This works especially well on those X-files-loving ladies who actually know what a centrifuge is from this show.  Nice :)

Speaking of doing science, I'll leave you with this awesome video with the award-deserving song from the finale of the X-box game Portal. Click here:  "Still Alive" -GLaDoS

"But there's no sense crying over every mistake.
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
And the Science gets done."

Lather, rinse, repeat

It's amazing how much of wet lab research is mundane routine. In general, research is incredibly tedious and slow. And very often, you don't find something groundbreaking and revolutionary. I wish more people understood this. My father, for instance, repeatedly asks if I "discovered anything yet." This makes me feel like this:
I forgive him quickly because he doesn't really get it, and that's ok. But, you would think that 3+ years later, he would understand when I explain it to him for the 50 millionth time why it doesn't work like that. It would be nice for others to understand the nature of lab-based research and what goes in to a single experiment. For instance (and not all experiments are like this, it's usually discipline and project specific), ONE of my experiments on primary neurons [brain cells harvested from an animal, a rat in this case] takes me about 2 weeks from start to finish.  Or, the fact that hundreds of experiments need to be conducted in order to 'safely' (read: with as little uncertainty as possible) make a conclusion about anything.

Sadly, simply saying something is 'bad for you,' or causes problems for human health, is not satisfactory for government-implemented policy. Years and volumes of data indicating a problem are needed to combat the use of whatever it is (i.e. industrial use of certain chemicals, certain pesticides, etc). This usually results in going down rabbit holes to prove inane points of HOW exactly this thing is bad for you. Research funds and man-hours are wasted on experiments necessary to find the smallest amount of a chemical that will not cause adverse effects ("Acceptable Daily Intake" of certain food additives, supplements, or even pesticide residues on foods, for example). Instead of eliminating the contaminant, industry waits for more time to pass with these studies and new policies to pass before they're ever expected to change.

I think some of the most important things I've learned in this program are about the politics surrounding the policy and decision-making towards anything public- or environmental-health related. It's quite amazing how little priority either of those two things get in this (and most) country(-ies). I love learning, but many times,the more I know, the angrier/sadder/more frustrated I become. I find myself envying the oblivious and ignorant, which is an interesting conclusion to come to when striving for 'higher education.'

Eureka?

I realized this morning that I will not be any good at this blog thing unless I have a focus.  At the risk of it turning into one giant rant, I decided this is going to be my outlet for all things grad school and lab fun related.

Really, I was thinking about all the times I've put some random grad-school-related phrases into Google in a bout of frustration (i.e. "Grad school makes me feel stupid") with the hope that some links pointing to sage wisdom and helpful advice would pop up.  Believe it or not, there are several things that do show up, and some are even helpful.  Many times, they are simply blogs and ramblings of former graduate students, many from within the sciences.  It really helps me to see other people thinking and feeling the same things I am while trudging through this strange world in which its very easy to feel stuck.

Maybe, one day, this site will come up on a Bing search by a desperate grad student, and their day might be that much brighter.