Every day in the lab is a little different– and by that I mean the same things happen, but in a slightly different order depending on when the hood is available.
The following small talk topics will come about, most probably more than once:
- World Cup
- The weather. It’s hot.
- The smell of the autoclave across the hall. Fresh baked carcinogens, just like mom used to make.
At some point during the day I have to tend to my cells. These highly metastatic breast cancer cells are slightly more affectionate than the average cat, but I care for them in the same way. I have to feed them, watch over them, and most importantly, keep them clean. It’s ironic to think of cancer cells getting sick, but if there’s any type of contamination in the dishes where the cells are grown, they become infected and useless. Assuming they are kept clean and fed, those adorable little cells grow up quite fast, so once they start getting sassy I move them out into a 6-well plate, where they can experiment with drugs and talk about feminism.
Actually just the drugs part. I treat them with inhibitors and/or enhancers of the gene I’m interested in.
Once they’ve been treated for the proper amount of time, I have to sacrifice the cells just like a farmer does their livestock. I lyse them and harvest their proteins– not for dinner, but for Western blot analysis (this is more informative but just as delicious).*
Most days I’m at one of the several hundred steps in a Western Blot; I might be making up gels, or running the gels, or transferring from the gels, or washing the membranes, or cutting the membranes, or printing out the results. The hardest part? Pretending not to be scared in the pitch-black developing room.
I also have to devote a few minutes every day to keeping up with my lab notebook. Like my 4th grade diary but far more interesting, my notebook is where I keep a log of my scientific life. I strive to analyze the results of my experiments in my lab notebook with the same fervor that I once used my diary to dissect my every interaction with the boy I liked (spoiler alert: I broke my finger tagging him in Capture the Flag).
There are a lot of steps to each of my assignments, and being a perfectionist, I want to make sure I get every single one right. This has yet to happen, but I continue to try my hardest. I do a lot of troubleshooting on my own (my fancy way of saying I screw something up and learn to not do it that way again), but most of the time I choose instead to irritate my lovely, knowledgeable mentors with lots of questions.
And then some more questions. And maybe a few more questions. Lucky for me, they’re kind and patient, and I’ve already learned so much from each and every person in the lab. I love hearing every day about their journeys, from their failed experiments to their breakthroughs, and all the months of mouse-breeding in between.
Sure, some variation of the same things happens every day in the lab. But the most important constant in my summer research experience has been that every single day I learn something new: about science, about life, and most importantly, about life as a scientist.
*I know what you’re thinking. Wait, are the cells cats? Angsty teenagers? Or sad, delicious cows? I’m sorry, there are just too many fun metaphors to be made here and I refuse to pick just one.
