Coooffffeeeeee

The yearly round up of most caffeinated professions was published this past summer and guess who made the list?  Coming in 2nd place, scientists were among the most highly caffeinated professionals, outdone only by those working in the food industry service.  Easier access to the goods perhaps?

It's no surprise that we are coffee junkies (or whatever form you prefer your caffeine in). We have a reputation for taking highly significant, important scientific discoveries, and boiling them down to a pile of jargon and acromyms, alphabet soup.  We're so technical in sharing our information, that the beauty of what we do is completely lost.  And yet, we are fascinated by what others would call mundane, or uneventful. At least we recognize our dependencies and most academic departments provide ample supply of the fueling nectar at every seminar and even throughout the day.

In starting this new postdoc position, I have the opportunity to work with a new virus, but also, a new in vitro cell system.  Put simply, tissue biopsies from the respiratory tracts are mashed up, cleaned up, and put into culture dishes.  These living, breathing cells then take it upon themselves to grow, divide, and become the appropriate mixture of cells that make up the surface of our respiratory tract.  As long as I keep "feeding" them, they keep on living for a few weeks, and start behaving like the cells they left behind.  They turn into various types of cells, produce mucus, and even grow cilia.  Even more astonishing, the cilia will spontaneously begin to beat in a rhythmic fashion.  There's no stopping these cells from doing what they were meant to do!

Last week, I observed these cells for the first time.  Under a simple light microscope, I could see the cilia beating and I was amazed by the beauty of life and the honor it is to be able to do this kind of research and have an appreciation for it.  I was thrilled at the opportunity to use this system in my research, all the while working towards better basic science understanding and better medical care for people all over the world.

What we do, as scientists, is pretty amazing. Perhaps we might want to share that excitement with our colleagues and the public once in a while without making it a technical mess.  There's no need to make it into a Hollywood production, either.  We just need to share the true amazement of life around us and what that means to the "regular" person.  Maybe then we might not need so much coffee just to get through the day.

Until then, can you pass the cream and sugar?

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2012/03/10-quick-creativity-hacks.html

Pilot Episode

Among the changing of the leaves and the cooler days, one of my favorite things about fall is the return of prime time TV.  Yep, I'm a total TV junkie.  Should I be spending my evenings studying, writing proposals and grants, and keeping abreast of the current literature?  Sure, but then I would miss all those new shows!  Since the end of Lost, I've been hopelessly searching for a replacement.  I feel like a part of me died when that show aired, or maybe it just went to an alternate universe?  Still not sure what happened there.

Anyways, every year, there is a new crop of medical shows, cop shows, sometimes a firefighter show.  I'm left wondering where the laboratory research show is!  Don't people care where their science and medical advances come from?  Don't they have an interest in what I do all day?

I started to think about what my day does entail and how that might translate to prime time television:

Arrive at lab - check email
Check calendar and make note of meetings and seminars to attend today.
Check email.
Check my cells under the microscope.  Umm, split tomorrow.
Do some data analysis on excel and graphpad.
Write in my notebook.
Check email.
Lunch.
Attend seminar.
Snack.
Check email.
Spend some time thinking about future experiments.
Look up articles on Pubmed - read abstracts only, but save files.
Work on lastet writing endeavor (paper, proposal, grant application, etc.)
Decide to split cells after all.
Check email.
Go home.

So, it might not be the most riveting, action filled profession in the world.  Even when there are a lot of experiments going on, to the untrained eye, its not very interesting.  Add some clear colorless reagent here, add a different clear colorless reagent there.  There are no poofs, no clouds of smoke, no "Eureka!"s.

So, perhaps, a laboratory themed show might need to be more Scrubs-esque and be about the people, rather than the work. Hmm, we might have something there.  You can't deny that there are certainly some interesting characters in a laboratory setting.  And, given the popularity of The Big Bang Theory, you can't argue that geek doesn't sell.  Alright, time to ponder this one and get back to you.  For now, I need to go check my email.

Wax on, Wax off

Much like Daniel-san, I had a thesis mentor whose practices were less than traditional.  We didn't have many conversations regarding science, career ambitions, or research strategies.  It was a much more "Here's some rope, don't hang yourself" kind of deal. 

As much as I may have struggled with his approach, I've found that in his own way, he's equipped me for the next stage of my career without me even realizing it.  He was my Mr. Miyagi.  In the death match of paper submission reviews, project proposals, research discussions, etc., I'm doing the crane kick and taking names.

So, thank you, Comrade Miyagi.  Thanks for letting me hang myself out to dry, for finding my way out of the frying pan into the fire, for letting me pick up the pieces, and try again.  What didn't destroy my academic research ambitions has made me stronger and I think, somewhere, in your car polishing lesson, you knew that would happen all along. :)

Science and Art

I've often joked that I'm a major disappointment to my parents: one is a musician, the other an artist.

I've chosen math and science for my career path.

Sorry guys.

But, I think there is beauty and art in just about everything we do, and certainly, this job requires quite a bit of creativity.  That's probably why I enjoy the products of cell imaging.  In this months issue of The Scientist, the article Pixel Perfect was a perfect example of this.  A year's worth of lab imaging submissions, and 4 prize-winning images that will astound you.

Even better was the article "Alive and in Focus", bringing my lovely viruses into the picture with breakthrough imaging techniques.  I giddily pointed out these pictures to my emergency medicine pharmacist husband:

See that honey?  The pink?  That's vaccinia virus!

Cannot get over the detail presented here.  I feel like there
are lessons to be learned by engineers here.

To get the full details, jump over to the full articles by following the links above. 

Maybe I can resolve the conflict between my passion and my heritage.  Science can be art after all.

Introduction

Who am I?  Why blog about who I am?  Where do I even start?

Well, I've been blogging for over two years now about being a wife to an amazing husband, a mom to two beautiful girls, and about the crafty things that I do in my free time.  I love the network of people I've met over this time, mostly other moms, whom share in my day-to-day triumphs and failures, laughter and hysterics.  I've truly enjoyed the writing process and resulting catharsis.  However, a big part of me was missing from those conversations, mostly because it just doesn't fit in well, nor appeal to the same group of people.

I'm a scientist.

That says it all, doesn't it?

To make it worse, I'm a virologist and immunologist. Yikes.

We scientists are a rare breed of people.  Willing to mercilessly dedicate our lives to the pursuit of knowledge in exchange for what?  Fame? Nope. Fortune? Ha! Try again. Self-satisfaction? Um, still waiting.

Having recently completed my PhD and begun working as a post doctoral fellow, I'm finding myself in new territories: new people, new research... new me?

I'm not even sure where this new blog will take me, or what I hope to achieve.  Maybe a new network of fellow-minded scientists?  Connections to colleagues who can commiserate with me or celebrate those rare "eureka" moments.  It's unlikely that I'll be able to share research specifics, as every one of us is against the other for funding.  Survival of the fittest at its best, no? Yeah, probably not.

Anyways, the articles aren't going to read themselves, nor will they compose themselves into proposals for me.  I hope this new venture will provide a brief relief from training, reading, experimenting, etc. and perhaps gain some new friends and colleagues along the way. 

Good luck with your experiments!