Research at Fulbright's Midpoint

As *some* of you may sort of know, l came to Fulbright for many reasons, but the research was the clearest reason. In my mind, coming to Canada gave me the greatest opportunity yet to understand myself as a researcher. 

That can be hard to appreciate... when you're still working hard at getting your cells to grow. According to my plan, I was meant to be past this point. Of course, science is never that straightforward, which keeps it exciting.

"When are you throwing the cells" the PhD student I work under asked me this morning. He perhaps thought I had forgotten. Even though I wrote it in on my Google Calendar to be done tomorrow!

Surely it was a sentimental connection....how could I throw these cells, my *SECOND* attempt at growing cells to treat experimentally, seeded towards the end of January. (My *FIRST* attempt involved 4 hours in the cell culture room, leading to cells that I could not experiment on....truly science is the harshest existence in this universe.)

What a cruel fate awaits them, and what a cruel destiny I must achieve. To do this task would be the anoint myself as the greatest villain the world has ever seen. 

What POSSIBLE reason could I have to do this? Well, you shall find out soon enough.

See these cells! They are differentiated, meaning that, in theory, they are growing longer. Muscle cells, after all, are supposed to do this!

Are these promising results or not? Well, you'll find out soon enough.

 

....Well, as you can see, only two wells were viable out of 12, and they are visible as the top two images.  Though it was not me who drew the "X"s, I was given the responsibility of assigning them. It felt almost rhythmic assigning most of these wells as "bad." But with only two wells, we could not even run the control treatments, let alone the experimental ones.

This revealed to me just how dramatically the second run of cells had betrayed my expectations. To be honest, these cells were still around today for one simple fact: so that I could learn and keep re-examining my mistakes. Maybe self-development is a sentimental reason! But as a scientist I should take every learning opportunity I can. (Plus it lets me share COOL SCIENCE on my blog.)

I felt crushed, in truth, but waiting 4 years to do Fulbright was still much more difficult. Two years in my Masters, feeling this weight throughout, was worse than this situation. Taking one year to find an advisor, and then having to crunch a complex multidisciplinary thesis into the next year.

But now, in Canada, the situation is completely unlike my Master's. The difference? Here I can continue to improve and grow under encouragement.

As you shall soon see, this strength of will is necessary for this work.

The process of cell seeding, wherein cells are added to 12-well plates in order to grow for experimental work, is demanding and complex, even if it is also intuitive and rhythmic. 

Basic steps include:
1) draining the flask originally containing the cells
2) detaching the cells from the flask using the protease trypsin in order to transfer the cells to a vial
3) spinning the cell-containing vial to obtain the cells as a pellet at the bottom
4) resuspending the pellet and adding growth medium
5) counting cells
6) diluting cells so that the appropriate concentrations can be achieved in the 12-well plate
7) seeding the cells into each well

As you can see, these many steps require both precision on my part and trial-and-error to ensure best outcomes for the cells.

Through diligent observation on my part, and working with my supervisor, I isolated two potentials for error: 1) improper mixing of cells, leading to inappropriate distributions of cells and 2) introduction of bubbles that may kill the cells. Of course, my errors all boil down to "activities that reduce the likelihood of cell survival" but to have a starting place makes me feel much better!

With these lessons, I am raising the caliber of my own work moving forward. There is good news still here -- for today, I prepared the third set of cells by loading them into a new 12-well plate.

To my happy surprise, the PhD student praised me both for my professional cleanliness in the cell culture workspace and for my more efficient cell seeding. This gave me the feeling that hard-fought improvement was truly a beautiful thing.

I look forward to growing even more tomorrow, so watch out (especially if you're a cell wanting to thwart my experiment)!

Last words...many thanks to the lab post-doc who gave me permission to share images of forsaken cells!