Sunday, August 5, 2007

4 Degrees

This morning, I injected some mRNA into some zebrafish embryos. I think they are so beautiful, and I never get tired of looking at them, except I was hurrying so that I could do some other procedure. A sign on the normal incubator read: "Incubator broken, plates moved to ---->>>" pointing directly at another incubator-looking box. Quickly, I open it, see a bunch of other plates inside, and stick mine in also.

12 hours later: I come back to check on my fish. I open the door.. yikes, it feels a bit chilly... I look at my fish under the microscope. They are still at the 4-cell stage!! (The same they were at this morning). I start laughing at the absurdity. I've just incubated my fish at 4 degrees for the day. (They simply couldn't grow.) Then I have an cool idea.. I'd been wanting to see expression at the 4-cell stage, except that it normally happens so soon after injecting mRNA that the fluorescent proteins don't have time to get produced. But now, they've had all day to form, and the embryos are still 4 cells. Awesome.

I love how research is all about using the tools handed to you in new ways to observe new things. I like how as scientists, we get to plan out everything we do, but many things don't go as planned. If this were a more important experiment, I'd be upset at my wasted time.. but as it is, all I was doing was a little testing (and it worked), plus I get cool green 4-celled fish by a method I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

Also this morning, I had to get the security officer to open the doors to my lab for me (I don't have the key). Very deferentially, he kept calling me doctor. "Hi doctor, how are you today. What can I do for you, doctor. Yes, doctor. Doctor, show me which door." I wanted to correct him the first time, but he had said doctor so many times already that I no longer felt it polite to tell him he was wrong. He definitely puts me ahead of the game. I won't have my first "doctor" until at least 5 years from now...


4 comments:

bqiu said...

It sounds like you're getting excited!!! I'm glad to hear it. Zebrafish are pretty awesome :)

-BQ

Anonymous said...

have I told you how much I enjoy reading your blog? ... the blog of a future great doctor (in both senses of the word =)

~Amy

Anonymous said...

ahhahahaha!!!!!
Diane, you great big nerd, you are so funny. That's quite some incubating you did there. hahahhaha...

and calling you doctor..ooh, that's a good one. I think I'll call you doctor from now on. Is that ok, doctor?
ok, ttyl, doctor D!

Stacy

Anonymous said...

what lab are you working in?