CELLebraTEZ

Finally, after 4 months of living in St. Louis, I finally toured some of the popular spots in St. Louis. One of my best friends from Agnes Scott College came to visit me! Cecilia Alcala and I met our freshman year but became really close during our Jr. and Sr. Years at Agnes. Throughout the past couple of years, thanks to texting and facebook, we have been able to keep in touch and our friendship has grown! During my months of unemployment, Cecilia's friendship and support was extremely helpful and her positive attitude was always inspiring!  Cecilia's first visit to St. Louis was a great reason for me to go out and explore the city I live in! Thank goodness for the Great weather!  We started our day getting breakfast at a Stl gem, Strange Donuts. Two doors down was a place called, Pie, Oh My! While the plan was just to get a donut, we ended up going to Pie, oh my and got mini pies as well!! Oh boy were we ready to conquer our sugar filled breakfast!!  After...

At some point in my last entry I talked about my frustration with technology. It seems as though the technological malfunctioning has passed and I can go back to doing experiments and trusting my data. I have officially been working and collecting data for the past 4 months. I have tons of numbers that we call “data.” But they are just numbers! We put the animal in a tube, run it through a machine and the machine spits out numbers. Sometimes, I collect blood samples measure it with a Glucometer and I get numbers. I collect RNA run it through qPCR and I get numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers!! Everywhere there are numbers! At some point, you must ask yourself… what do these numbers mean? The process of sorting data is very tedious. It takes time, patience and perfection! Once you have these numbers sorted in an “organized” fashion, the next process is to UNDERSTAND what these numbers mean. In the understanding part of the data, numbers get “thrown out.” These numbers that magically...

It’s been forever since I last updated my blog! I am apparently not too good at it. It is definitely something I need to get better at! So much has happened since last year! A quick recap since my last blog! Christmas: Fortunate for me, the holiday season was not so lonely. Thanks to the wonderful Holiday parties that were thrown by my Lab. Delicious food, great people, and biology jokes what else could I have asked for! On top of that, I received a very generous Christmas gift from my PI :D                                                                                New Years: My cousin Nageen finally came back from spending the semester in Australia! She turned 21 on Christmas and we weren’t able to celebrate. So I went to Atlanta to spend time with her and make her 2...

I think the title says it all. So instead of writing about it, enjoy the pictures!    

Part of working at such a great research institution is working with mice. While my first experience as I had mentioned earlier in the blog was sacrificing these animals, my experience now is much more exciting and productive towards the scientific community. I have learned to inject mice and collect mouse tissue for further studies.  Around Thanksgiving, someone asked me, "don't you feel bad 'torturing' the animals?" While at first I did not know how respond, but then I think about it and I realize that I had to go through so much training and clearances just to be able to set a foot in the animal facilities. Ever step of the way, humane acts are enforced while dealing with animals. Animal models are essential especially for research that is being translated into therapies for various diseases or for research that is used to better understand various diseases. The best thing I can say is, if not animals then would you prefer s...

It’s been a while since I updated. Have been totally wrapped up with my new life in St. Louis and having too much fun in the lab!! Since the last time I blogged, I have started getting more comfortable working with mice, learned how to give mice injections and learned to dissect and collect tissue from mice as well! So since I last updated. I have celebrated my first Thanksgiving as an independent woman! I think I did pretty good for the first time. I made sweet potato casserole, green beans casserole and stuffing! The food was delicious!! Sweet Potato Casserole before Marshmallows  Green Bean Casserole My dinner plate Sweet Potato Casserole w/ Marshmallows  ~ Cell-ebraTez

I was really excited coming into work today! I was finally going to get the opportunity to learn to work with mice! This is the skill that regardless of what interview I have gone in for, was a make or break deal for me! Finally someone has taken the risk on me to hire me without the mice experience and I am getting to learn it on the job!! Thank goodness for people who like taking risks and taking risks with me! So I come into work! Super excited! I will get to tour the animal barrier facility. The barrier facility is a pathogen free environment so that means when we go in we have to completely cover ourselves and everything we take in with is must be sterile. So Russ, one of my colleagues also the animal technician for the lab, takes me to the facility for a tour and shows me around the rooms where my mice are kept. I am expecting Russ telling me, “oh we will wean some animals and clip tails.” Nope, the first thing I hear/comprehend from Russ is, “I am going to ‘sac’ these...