Momentary Heart Attack
I swear I almost just had a heart attack. I've been writing my candidacy exam for days now, and I'm actually doing very well - my due date is August 28th and I only have 2 and a half more pages to go! However, as I began writing my third specific aim today I realized that it was completely impossible to do as planned. Wanna hear the gorey science-nerd details? Well, I guess it doesn't really matter if you want to or not 'cuz I'm going to say them anyways.
Okay, so I have several experimental plans in mind to hypothetically research the human disease Treacher Collins Syndrome (TCS). It's really cool, I'm making new mice and isolating cells and everything! My first mouse was going to totally abolish my gene from being expressed in the neural crest. By the way, the neural crest is a bunch of cells that eventually become tons of things in your body including the cells that wrap around your neurons, the bones of your face, the melanocytes in your skin, and many other cool organs. Anyways, it's also the tissue that is mutated in TCS, so I wanted to knock out the gene specifically there. It's really complicated to get into HOW you knock it out, so I won't go into that detail - just take my word for it, it can be done. So I've written about 6-7 pages so far about the experiments that I want to do with this mouse and the cells I can get from it... Good stuff! Well, as I moved into my last set of experiments (also known as 'the coolest experiments' in my opinion) I wanted to make a mouse that abolishes the gene's expression in every cell EXCEPT for the neural crest. The reason for this has to do with being able to rescue, or bring back to normal, the mutated tissues in the mouse I just described above. The problem, as I discovered while writing the methods for making the mouse, is that it is impossible to do with the mice that I had been working with... This is because in order to get the mouse that I believe (hypothesize) will live I have to start with mice that have been reported to die just after birth. Yes, it is very difficult to mate mice when they only live for about 5 minutes. Enter the almost heart attack feeling, complete with dizzyness, shortness of breath, sweaty hands, and nausea. Bear in mind that I've already offered this idea up to my committee, suggesting that it would work out... And they approved it enthusiastically. (Cue the beads of sweat forming on my brow)
The most I have to say is thank God for my friends in the lab. Jay and Emilia came in and sat with me for a little while kicking ideas around to see if there is any other way to make this mouse work. What was probably only about 15 minutes (but seemingly like 6 hours) later we came up with a plan that I think will work out in the end. What's great about this is that I don't actually have to change much - just the strain of mouse I'm working in. I know what you're thinking... "Strain of mouse? What the hell does that mean?" Okay, here goes. Strains of mice are sorta like different human races. We're all humans, but there are black, asian, caucasian, etc humans that are slightly different from each other. Well, this difference in mice can have huge effects when dealing with them in the lab. Luckily, some strains of mice don't die when the TCS gene is knocked out. I found this out from a paper that some people published about it, and I feel like I want to track down the authors and kiss them all because without this paper I would have had aboslutely no way out of my predicament. So now I can generate my mouse in the viable strain, and then cross it later in life to another mouse that I need to complete the model - which is derived from the strain that normally causes death in the TCS mutants. (This last part is okay, because this will show me if the mice are be able to live in the strain that normally dies - which is what I want) Whew! Crisis averted! And all I had to do was change 4-5 words in the text. It turned out to be WAY better than initially anticipated.
Now that I've taken some time to calm down a little bit and get over my shakes, I'm feeling confident once again about my experimental design. Things were going so well up until that point... But it's okay now:)
--
I know it's been a little while since I posted last... Not too much new has happened lately since I've been writing so much. Well, that is, except for when Dad came a couple weekends ago:) We had a really good time at the airshow - even despite all the heat and sunburn. I got to see the Blue Angels up close and personal (well, sorta... you can't actually get any closer than about 100ft), and I might add that the pilots were pretty easy on the eyes ;-) I love a man in uniform! (Especially one that can operate heavy machinery with pinpoint precision at high speeds against 9 G-forces!) All in all a good weekend!
Random change of subject: Today I was asked to go cave walking! How cool is that?! It's funny too because my friends in the lab are rooting for me to start dating one of the guys in the group that's going:) He's a post-doc in the building next-door to mine, and we've had a minor bit of interaction over the past year or so. Turns out he emailed me about a year ago when I was using "Yahoo Personals" internet dating but it was at the end of my subscription to the service so I didn't respond to him. Shortly thereafter, my friends in lab realized that he worked next door (this I didn't know at the time) so I kept my eyes out for him whenever I went to his building. He's really tall (big bonus), fairly attractive, and was very nice in his note to me. Seems fairly compatible as well, judging by what I remember of his profile (which isn't much). Anyways, a couple weeks ago we walked into the building together because we happened to come in on a Saturday at the same time. We had a nice little chat, and so far I've only seen him once or twice since then when we said "hi" from a distance. Well, two days ago he came by the lab after I had left to go home, and he asked my labmate to tell me that he was looking for me. Oooooh!! *smiles* So the next day, after Zhirong told me about it, she and Emilia got all excited thinking he was going to ask me out! I have to admit, I was kind of hoping for it myself:) Well, I had to go next door today to talk to one of my committee members and it just so happens that his lab is just down the hall from there. When I was on my way to stop in and say hi, I passed another collegue/lab-friend of mine, Pam. She asked if I had spoken to this guy (John) yet and I said I was just going there now. At this point I was kind of wondering why she (from a different lab than John) knew that he was looking for me - had they talked about me? Was he really going to ask me out? It turns out that Pam and one of her friends and John found out about some caves in southern Ohio and they thought maybe I'd want to go with them to see it:) I felt SO special! They probably only see me once every couple of months (if that) and they thought of ME to go caving with them!:) Cue warm fuzzy feelings. Naturally I took them up on their offer, and now I have a fun-filled weekend planned for the 19th! Of course, when I came back to lab everyone was dying to hear what happened, and upon hearing the news they were immediately convinced that he likes me and that this could be the start of something new. Hmm.. I think I'll stick with my warm fuzzies about just being included before I get too ahead of myself:)
Okay, so I have several experimental plans in mind to hypothetically research the human disease Treacher Collins Syndrome (TCS). It's really cool, I'm making new mice and isolating cells and everything! My first mouse was going to totally abolish my gene from being expressed in the neural crest. By the way, the neural crest is a bunch of cells that eventually become tons of things in your body including the cells that wrap around your neurons, the bones of your face, the melanocytes in your skin, and many other cool organs. Anyways, it's also the tissue that is mutated in TCS, so I wanted to knock out the gene specifically there. It's really complicated to get into HOW you knock it out, so I won't go into that detail - just take my word for it, it can be done. So I've written about 6-7 pages so far about the experiments that I want to do with this mouse and the cells I can get from it... Good stuff! Well, as I moved into my last set of experiments (also known as 'the coolest experiments' in my opinion) I wanted to make a mouse that abolishes the gene's expression in every cell EXCEPT for the neural crest. The reason for this has to do with being able to rescue, or bring back to normal, the mutated tissues in the mouse I just described above. The problem, as I discovered while writing the methods for making the mouse, is that it is impossible to do with the mice that I had been working with... This is because in order to get the mouse that I believe (hypothesize) will live I have to start with mice that have been reported to die just after birth. Yes, it is very difficult to mate mice when they only live for about 5 minutes. Enter the almost heart attack feeling, complete with dizzyness, shortness of breath, sweaty hands, and nausea. Bear in mind that I've already offered this idea up to my committee, suggesting that it would work out... And they approved it enthusiastically. (Cue the beads of sweat forming on my brow)
The most I have to say is thank God for my friends in the lab. Jay and Emilia came in and sat with me for a little while kicking ideas around to see if there is any other way to make this mouse work. What was probably only about 15 minutes (but seemingly like 6 hours) later we came up with a plan that I think will work out in the end. What's great about this is that I don't actually have to change much - just the strain of mouse I'm working in. I know what you're thinking... "Strain of mouse? What the hell does that mean?" Okay, here goes. Strains of mice are sorta like different human races. We're all humans, but there are black, asian, caucasian, etc humans that are slightly different from each other. Well, this difference in mice can have huge effects when dealing with them in the lab. Luckily, some strains of mice don't die when the TCS gene is knocked out. I found this out from a paper that some people published about it, and I feel like I want to track down the authors and kiss them all because without this paper I would have had aboslutely no way out of my predicament. So now I can generate my mouse in the viable strain, and then cross it later in life to another mouse that I need to complete the model - which is derived from the strain that normally causes death in the TCS mutants. (This last part is okay, because this will show me if the mice are be able to live in the strain that normally dies - which is what I want) Whew! Crisis averted! And all I had to do was change 4-5 words in the text. It turned out to be WAY better than initially anticipated.
Now that I've taken some time to calm down a little bit and get over my shakes, I'm feeling confident once again about my experimental design. Things were going so well up until that point... But it's okay now:)
--
I know it's been a little while since I posted last... Not too much new has happened lately since I've been writing so much. Well, that is, except for when Dad came a couple weekends ago:) We had a really good time at the airshow - even despite all the heat and sunburn. I got to see the Blue Angels up close and personal (well, sorta... you can't actually get any closer than about 100ft), and I might add that the pilots were pretty easy on the eyes ;-) I love a man in uniform! (Especially one that can operate heavy machinery with pinpoint precision at high speeds against 9 G-forces!) All in all a good weekend!
Random change of subject: Today I was asked to go cave walking! How cool is that?! It's funny too because my friends in the lab are rooting for me to start dating one of the guys in the group that's going:) He's a post-doc in the building next-door to mine, and we've had a minor bit of interaction over the past year or so. Turns out he emailed me about a year ago when I was using "Yahoo Personals" internet dating but it was at the end of my subscription to the service so I didn't respond to him. Shortly thereafter, my friends in lab realized that he worked next door (this I didn't know at the time) so I kept my eyes out for him whenever I went to his building. He's really tall (big bonus), fairly attractive, and was very nice in his note to me. Seems fairly compatible as well, judging by what I remember of his profile (which isn't much). Anyways, a couple weeks ago we walked into the building together because we happened to come in on a Saturday at the same time. We had a nice little chat, and so far I've only seen him once or twice since then when we said "hi" from a distance. Well, two days ago he came by the lab after I had left to go home, and he asked my labmate to tell me that he was looking for me. Oooooh!! *smiles* So the next day, after Zhirong told me about it, she and Emilia got all excited thinking he was going to ask me out! I have to admit, I was kind of hoping for it myself:) Well, I had to go next door today to talk to one of my committee members and it just so happens that his lab is just down the hall from there. When I was on my way to stop in and say hi, I passed another collegue/lab-friend of mine, Pam. She asked if I had spoken to this guy (John) yet and I said I was just going there now. At this point I was kind of wondering why she (from a different lab than John) knew that he was looking for me - had they talked about me? Was he really going to ask me out? It turns out that Pam and one of her friends and John found out about some caves in southern Ohio and they thought maybe I'd want to go with them to see it:) I felt SO special! They probably only see me once every couple of months (if that) and they thought of ME to go caving with them!:) Cue warm fuzzy feelings. Naturally I took them up on their offer, and now I have a fun-filled weekend planned for the 19th! Of course, when I came back to lab everyone was dying to hear what happened, and upon hearing the news they were immediately convinced that he likes me and that this could be the start of something new. Hmm.. I think I'll stick with my warm fuzzies about just being included before I get too ahead of myself:)
posted by DMmobile87 @ 2:34 PM
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