The Joy of Science

Everyday I'm surrounded by cancer. It's rather messed up really, that every week when I sit in the multidisciplinary team, I'm disappointed that there is no suitable patient for my clinical trial. I'm disappointed that some poor woman hasn't got the right sort of cancer. Okay, well..the sort of cancer I'm interested in (endometriod ) usually has a good outcome...but still!

I feel like a right old meanie!

I was trying to explain over dinner to SD3 what I do on a daily basis. I decided to talk about the lab stuff...

Me:.....so basically, I grow some cancer cells, and then I try and kill them with a drug....
SD3:...that's so weird!

It is rather! I spent all week trying my first "real experiment". Without too many specific, I put tiny numbers of cancer cells in a 96 well plate, dosed them up with varying drug concentrations and over the last few days, have been checking to see if they stopped growing.

We haven't crunched the numbers yet, but even looking at the well with the highest drug dose, those cancer cells are still too happy for my liking! I don't think the experiment has worked. Apparently, they never really do! One of the other PhD students is at the end of his 2nd year, and he doesn't have any results!

The Joy of Science eh?

Happy weekend everyone!

Cathartic or self-indulgent?

Or merely another means of procrastination?

When starting any new job, you're bombarded with information leaflets and helpful suggestions. During my "Speed PhD" session, one of the leaflets was about the "connected researcher". All about the importance of disseminating your findings and communicating with other members of the research community. It seemed like a very good idea. However, I'm now in month 4 of a three year PhD- and I don't have squat!

Not even one measly result. I have managed to infect the first batch of cancer cells that I am supposed to growing as part of an experiment. Yup- the first thing I saw this morning down a microscope, instead of happy healthy cancer cells ( yes..that's a total misnomer) were millions of teeming bacteria! You can almost hear all the post docs say...here comes Typhoid Mary.

So...this isn't going to be about the dissemination of results. It's probably not going to be coherent. But, at least I'm writing. Putting one word..after the other and occasionally getting the punctuation correct.