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).