My daily life as a devoted member of the scientific arts might seem a little routine, and perhaps to the untrained eye, mundane. That could not be further from the truth. Although there might be sometimes where it seems as if no amount of pipetting could possibly solve the project you are working on, sure enough things being to become clear. The rush of discovery fills you as your head spins with new ideas on how to find the answers you are looking for. With that being said it is often hard to be me mercurial with your passion for science for as there are many rewards, the drawback can often be significant too. For example, nothing is more frustrating than having an experiment fail after three or four days of work. As with many things in life you must take the good with the bad, but luckily in this case the pros far out weigh the cons.
A typical day in the lab for me includes learning the various lab techniques that are commonly used in a protein biochemistry lab. Although many of them take a while to get used to much less master I am confident that I am making good progress in learning the skills. As I have mentioned before I am working with the protein MtrR, so to be able to isolate the protein there are several steps that must be followed.
1. Transforming the gene into a competent cell
2. Growing a large amount of the cells with your protein in it
3. Lysing the cells
4. Purifying and crystallizing the protein
So my daily work consists of the many steps that it takes to achieve those goals. Over all the work is interesting and simulating, which is one of the things I like most about working in science.
