Exciting Adventures on the Research Front

Well, it comes a time in every one's research when you get extremely frustrated and you wonder if anything will ever work or are you at a dead end. Let me say that I have felt that way about my research this summer for the past couple of weeks.

First off, the sequencer in our lab, the primary machine I need to verify many mutations for my research, was not working at all. No peaks were coming up and I feared that I would not have any data at the end of the program except for some gel electrophoresis images. While these photos are nice, they cannot conclude if the one-base pair mutation is there or not. Then this week, Lynn, the research assistant in my lab who has taught me so much figured out what was wrong with the machine: the cable was on "test" rather than "run." That's all! We just had to change the cable hook-up and viola! it's working now! Now, I'm quite excited that I shall have data!

Also, for the past couple of weeks, I have been testing primers to find the optimal conditions for them. For the first 15 out of 16 primers, everything was great: I got the conditions down right away. But this one primer just would not work. I must have prepared about 5 PCRs and ran the gel just as many times. But to avail. I would either have no bands (which is quite distressing for a student who always had clear bands in her gels from her labs in general Biology and genetics) or I would have multiple bands. Finally, I gave up on that primer, designed a new one for the same locus of DNA I wanted and the new primer came in today. So, I'm in the process of preparing it.

Then, on Tuesday, I decided to do a PCR of about 10 samples for various genes. I was so afraid that I would mess up again and there would be no bands on any of the samples. BUT every sample produced a band! And the band lengths were just right. I was so excited that I started dancing in front of the imaging machine. Thankfully, no one walked into the room while I was doing this, because then they would have thought that I was insane.

So, I've been feeling a little better about my research. I'm finally getting data. My mentor returned from a trip to Europe and brought me back cookies! And told me to keep up the good work (I had been emailing him daily about my distressing primer situation and the later fantastic gel along with the dancing. I also think that the research assistant was filling him in about how I was helping around the lab). He's off to a convention for the Endocrine Society and I'll see him in about a week. He also wants me to present at his lab meeting when he gets back. And these lab meetings are not just him and the research assistant that helps me, it's everyone who works in the lab, along with collaborators from other labs and Ob/Gyns from the hospital because they help out with the clinical aspect of his research. (My mentor is an Ob/Gyn, but also has a lab to investigate specific puberty disorders)

Well, time to get back to research. I'm sorry if this is boring for all the non-science people out there! But I cannot imagine working outside of the science/medicine world!

Peace and love,
Lizzy-