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