..and happiness rolls in

Well, I have some good news. Over the past few posts, I've been complaining about an experiment that has yet to work, leaving me ... a little disapointed to say the least. Yesterday, however, things changed, and stuff worked!!! Yes my friends, you betcha, stuff worked the way it should. The world still turns and gravity still pulls us in! My B cells lit up like good little B cells should (these are the cells that show bacteria etc to T cells which start your immune reaction) and my T cells stayed dark like good little T cells should. But, you rightly ask, what does this mean good sir? What does this mean.. In a nutshell, I can now separate B's from T's from a mixture nicely. YAY FOR ME!!! yay for me.

Now I know that the world has been waiting for such a result as this, but it's been too scared to ask the obvious question, maybe a feeling of "do we ask," or "should I already know this answer, so..." Well, because happiness has finally sprung its glorious talons into my face, I will answer this question...

What this means is that eventually be able to produce a picture like this:

Because when it comes down to it, at the end of the day, all we will really end up with are hopefully some good stories, and a few nice pictures.

Again the question though, "Who cares?" and the obvious statement, "Not I" from the rest of the world... But let me ask you this, if you really didn't care, why are you still reading? Maybe you are hoping (against hope I might add), that I will actually write something of interest, instead of sharing the monotonous details of a simple little experiment that finally worked. Let me put that to rest right now:

Not going to happen.

Each spot on this picture represent one gene. This picture is magnified a bunch of times, but the one(s) I will be dealing with will have 22, 000 different genes on it, meaning that there are 22, 000 different genes on a microscope slide, so they're pretty bloody small. When I separate my T's from B's, I will then do some magical wizardry and then create my very own (3 actually) pictures like this. The colour is important here, as a red dot means that that particular gene is overproduced in drug treated cells (compared to untreated ones), a green dot means that gene is underproduced in drug treated cells (compared to untreated ones). But, a yellow dot means that the gene is equally produced in drug treated and untreated cells.

"So, I still don't care? Why are still bothering me?"

Because with this, I will be able to tell you what our immunosuppressive drug is doing within a cell. Is it killing it or not, or what other pathways are being activated as a result of this drug. It will simply tell me what the drug is doing at a specific level. It's important... really it is.

Practically speaking, I had to get up at 5am to be at work at around 7:15am, as I will have to do Wednesday and Thursday as well, come in on Saturday, then work by but off next week, so I can get some sort of result late next week, to show in my presentation the following Wednesday. So, in 2 Mondays from now, you will either get a happy post, or one drenched with the salt encrusted tears of a PostGrad student who has lost it and considering a career as a coffee shop owner... or employee at least.

Other news, one of my best friends from University is getting married (no date set)!!!!!! She's a beautiful girl, inside and out, and I hope he realizes how lucky he is. I hope that I can get to the wedding though! Good on ya Beth, you made my day!

I really should be going now, I have to write more stuff.