I know I have been M.I.A. guys, sorry! I have been busy in the laboratory; cleaning it out and conducting an elaborate experiment. Both have been time-consuming and laborious, and I’d rather not post an article at all, than to post one that is insufficient and lack-luster.

The thing about it is, research in academia is far different that in industry(university vs. company); budgets can be much smaller, labs more congested, and resources and supplies far fewer. In the case of the lab I am in, my mentor inherited it from the department after another professor left. With that, he inherited lots of old supplies and equipment, which created a lot of clutter. For safety reasons, and flow of work, that clutter had to be cleared. Unfortunately, a lot of that work falls down to the graduate students.

It can be very overwhelming, when you don’t have all the supplies and equipment you need to do the work you want to do. I had been hunting an inverted microscope with a camera for some time, and begging for the purchase of other needed equipment. At one point, I had a moment of weakness, and broke-down crying. Thankfully my lab-partner was there to console me and counsel me back to sanity (the walk to get pizza also helped).  Eventually, I was able to use a microscope in another lab. It is so important to build amicable and good working relationships with your fellow researcher. If it were not for these kind-hearted people, I would be lost.

In better news, weeks spent ordering supplies, reading a multitude of scientific journal articles, setting up experiments, and recording data have paid off. My work has thus far been successful, and I am very happy because it is very possible to do all that work, and have your experiment fail! Below is an image of the cells I’ve been working on and was able to capture on camera: