Now that we are pretty much in the home stretch of our program, I can confidently say that this summer has certainly been one of growth and knowledge. Coming into BSURF, I had very little idea of what to expect in regards to what research was. I had even less of an idea of what to expect from my lab, or what my life/research project would be like. My first few weeks though filled with lots and lots of pipetting, practice assays and math practice, also served as a time to ask a lot of questions so that I fully understood my project when I actually began it. However, all those questions didn’t necessarily prepare me for many of the issues I faced in the 6 weeks I’ve spent at the Haynes lab.
Just two weeks ago, I encountered the strangest problem with my project. So strange, that I decided to take off for lunch to tell my mom that I wasn’t cut out for research because I probably broke yet another piece of equipement (more on the first piece later). The problem was that after spending two days buffer exchanging my four antibodies, I had to nanodrop them, which is just a way of checking the concentration of my antibodies. The goal was around 1 mg/ml, which proved to be another challenging feat all on its own. So, I nanodrop all four antibodies in Buffer A and although some are a little below 1, I figured it was good enough. I moved on to Buffer B. The first antibody had a concentration of .0003. I repeated the process and got the same exact number. At this point, I assume that that antibody could’ve been a mislabeled tube during the buffer exchange, so I test a second antibody in Buffer B. My heart drops when the number is negative. In my mind, you can’t have a negative concentration of something, right? Which clearly means it’s broken. Which clearly means I broke it. Fortunately, after an hour of melodrama, it occurred to me to test Buffer C, which turned out just fine and the machine was not broken! Basically, the issue was that my buffers were being exchanged in 10x when they had to be turned to 1x (which apparently was supposed to be common knowledge, whoops). Once I fixed the buffer concentration, I got such better concentrations, I could’ve cried.
One of the most rewarding parts of the many, many issues that I face in the lab is that somehow one of the lab technicians, Callie, seems to always know my issues before I decide that I want to ask for help. Of course, sometimes, I’m very obvious, like the time I asked her what should my “hypothetical” friend who “hypothetically” just broke the pH electrode do. Other times, I just walk in the room with a panicked look on my face and she starts to run hot water for me because she somehow always knows when I forget to thaw TMB. Although I’m convinced that she thinks I’m extremely forgetful and clumsy all the time (just like an undergrad is expected to be I suppose), I not only appreciate that Callie is always willing to help me, I truly appreciate that the reason she understands my frustrations so well is because she, and many other people, have been there before. Everyone forgets to take their TMB out at some point and maybe some poor soul too has thought the cover for the pH electrode is for decoration. I doubt it.. but maybe? The point is that most of my mistakes are ones that have answers that can be found by being open enough to admit that I messed up and discovering that openness has been the joy of all my woes this summer.
