Moments of the week

One of my labmates works with low levels of toxic radiation. His bench always has weird stuff on it like lead shields. Yesterday, I noticed he had an AM/FM radio out, and I couldn't imagine what it was for. His response "Listening to music." Oh.

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We've known since he was a kitten, Raoul has a lifelong infection with felines herpes. The vet told us he would have outbreaks that will look like upper respiratory things, but he is otherwise very healthy. This week, his eyes have been running a bit (the first symptom), and he has started sneezing at night. It took us a couple nights to figure out what it is- he sneezes in rapid succession, with a noise that sounds like he is opening up half a dozen cans of soda.

"Pfff... Pfff... Pfff...Pfff... Pfff..."

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The teaching lab where my class is next to the main offices for the construction works renovating our building. I see these guys a lot, and many of them have that charming Pittsburgh accent. I passed a bunch of these guys in the hall, headed back to base with their own chairs in hand for a meeting. As the line of them passed, another guy yelled out (with typical Pittsburgh aggressive hospitality), "Yinz mus' be da chairmen of the Board. Ya' know, good to see ya', chairmen!"

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Peering outside this morning with coffee and slippers, Matt says "Um, there seems to be some weird slow moving rain out there. Wait, that's not rain. Too white."

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I got an email from my collaborators in Alabama this week. They are trying to perform a high through put screen to find drugs to treat my viruses. It is a great system if we can get it up and running, I send them protein, they screen their library or 300,000 compounds. Previous efforts have managed to take a time consuming assay I do that could screen several drugs a day to be able to screen hundred. Alabama just announced they miniaturized the assay by 1/4, so they can easily screen thousands of compounds a day- which means I don't have to send so much protein (read 1/4 the work!). Take that, Dr. Bigbucks!

The Euphoria of Science

These last two years have been a real hard pull, science wise. I feel like I don't have enough/ energy to make headway. Every step has to be learned, and it is slow. I take heart in the fact that most people accomplish little until their last year- the rest of graduate school is just training and laying the ground work for that golden time. But it is frustrating have little hope of anything going right for the next couple years.

But, I was caught off guard today when, miraculously, Something Worked.

I have been doing a genetic screen which involves a lot of registering dead cells. "Yup, this tells us nothing," "this is meaningless," "nothing to be learned here," "check" "check" "check." This is high risk project Dr. Boss gave me to fill in the time when the drug screening was slow. Screening for drugs is low risk, if you do it right you are guaranteed to get something. Dr. Boss had asked in the morning if there was anything to tell the collaborators during his conference call today, so I told him I would check on some things. I've been about ready to can this project, when surprisingly some of my cells were Not Dead today. This is Awesome. This is so awesome I made myself leave the room and come back and check again. This is so exciting I made someone else look at them to be sure I wasn't fooling myself. And then I went upstairs and did some incredibly mundane work that I felt fabulous about because Something Worked. Now, this is very preliminary, and there is about a year of follow-up to do here. But I haven't had so much as a hint of preliminary excitement since starting this, so I was ready to Explode with Excitement!

Finally, after I told half the lab and they were all convinced that these cells are Not Dead, I told Dr. Boss. Now, when it comes to collaborators, Dr. Boss is a blabbermouth. So I told him how very preliminary this was, and that I knew I would follow this up, but I thought he might like to know. And he very coolly wrote out the result to tell the collaborators, who had a million extra ideas to try because this is So Exciting! And even though it is some of my least favorite science, I don't care! Something Worked!!

Update on the Scoop

For those closely following the Major Drama that unfurled while in Madison, I Finally got to talk to Dr. Boss the whole "Are we getting scooped by a Big Wig at Yale?" thing. This was a very good chat. I carefully explained what I thought Dr. Bigbucks was up to (including the things that seemed intentionally vague), and Dr. Boss thought that the way he had set up his experiments would give him more hurdles to jump later- whereas our targeted approach might make it to trials someday more smoothly. He also said it was inevitable that other labs would be looking for drugs (sigh), and that this may be ideal- HIV is treated with a cocktail, why not our virus?

I feel less anxious about this, and I got some good props as well.

I explained that I was anxious because Dr. Bigbucks has already screened other members of the virus family, something I am hoping to set up soon. Dr. Boss thinks we should move ahead and try to get the system established ahead of having drugs to screen so we don't have to trouble shoot both at once. This is, and continues to be, a major goal of mine since joining the lab and I feel really good about getting the green light. Like dance around in a lab coat good.

I also learned about an assay that I thought would be cool, fast and boost my science-cred a lot- but a bit out on a limb for Dr. Boss' normal taste in experiments. He thought that would be worth getting in place too. He also thought that this was a very good meeting for me to keep going to, and was pleased that I have gotten to interact with so many important people. He said he might even go himself sometime (I doubt it). This makes me feel like he really respects and trusts me as a scientist, which means a lot. Dr. Boss is an even Bigger Wig in some circles.

Bottom line is, we aren't worried about stuff coming out of Yale, but I get to do the really exciting science I'd been daydreaming about for my efforts. Great Meeting!

Final Score from Wisconson

After I've had a bit of time to collect my thoughts, I wanted to give a more complete impression of my time in Madison. As I said, this was my first real conference, so I didn't know what to expect. I can only imagine my dear readers have no idea what I am talking about. While my naive impression was that conferences are where the nerds go to get their "Sitting Through Lectures" Merit badge, this was a lot more about networking. And a lot less about sleeping.

I went with Dr. Rockstar (who left me to my own devices) and one of his undergrads, and we fared Quite Well. I did see every talk that was even remotely relevant to my work (a small chunk of the 120 talks given), presented my own work at a poster session and met a lot of people. I met (among others) the guy who discovered one of the first viruses in our family in 36 years, the guys who actually found the (other) virus in cancer cells, the lab that had been studying the cancer and were surprised to find out they were virologists, Dr. Rockstar's fav grad student and his lab, the FDA lab that historically studied our virus after its release into the human population (this was an accident), Dr. Rockstar's wife and Dr. Rockstar's band. I wouldn't call him that for no reason.

The band actually came to play at the final banquet/ball. They are a cover band, and they took audience requests so long as well all kept dancing. And Dr. Rockstar's undergrad and I couldn't stand the possibility of having attended the "most sedate meeting ever" (according to the Old Guard), so we endeavored to get a lot of the people we had met dancing with us. And we did. Believe it or not, there is nothing a famous scientist likes more than a big dance party. We kept a private tally of all the famous people who would dance with us. And we danced until the banquet hall kicked us out. It was a great party, and I think Dr. Rockstar no longer thinks I am such a nerd.

Update on the scoop: my (now favorite) collaborator pulled me aside at the banquet to tell me she had talked to Dr. Bigbucks to see how far along they were on MY PROJECT, and gave me some really good advice/ things to tell my boss. And then she said she would go talk to the editor of the journal that we submitted our paper to and cheer lead a bit. What a wonderful woman.

Final Score: Days in Madison: 5
Talks heard: 80
Icecreams eaten: 9
Poster presented: 1
Nights out past bedtime: 3
Famous Scientists Danced with: 4
Improved interest in my science: 5X

Did I hear a scoop?

Still in Madison this morning, which has been a really interesting, stimulating experience. Up until now I was floating in a cloud of bliss that my project was foresighted enough to look for viral inhibitors before they got so hot. See, this winter, a group showed that a very closely related virus causes very aggressive cancer. This has been a major highlight of the meeting. I had been confident that while drug discovery would get popular, we had a head start.

This morning I got up early for a talk from Yale where Dr. BigMoney showed that they have a high through-put screen, and some inhibitors, and that their system for testing against the whole family of viruses was established. Just yesterday I was outlining the paper I might publish in a few years where we described out screen, show our drugs and show how nicely they work on other members of the family. I am still trying to process how bad this is- our screen is faster and more specific, but required a lot more follow-up experiments = time. Of course we won't find the same drugs, but in this field you just have to be first. My other adviser Dr. Rockstar who is here with me says I just need to work faster- people were bound to be interested in this now that it is so fundable.

We'll see what my boss says, but I am feeling very shaken. Is their screen better? Can my plan get better? How far along are they? How much am I willing to sacrifice to catch up? Is it too late??

Today is the last day of the conference, and the ball. I'll be back in Pittsburgh Sunday night, which may results in some delayed phone calls home. I'll give a better description of ths conference when I've had some time for reflection.