The End of the Line and My Rope

I found a note card the other day with a terrific quote: "When you think you've reached the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on tight." This is a great vet school motto, and today I had to go with it.

I only have 1 more real time-PCR to run and of course I have had to run it at least 3 times. Last night I tried to save a plate, and the seal broke. Today my data looked great, and then poof the file corrupted never to be open again. My student mentor is going to re-do it for me tomorrow, since "I am at the end of my rope." My student mentor is also at the end of her rope. She has spent the entire summer firming up her data, with the same experiment in triplicate week after week. While her trend is consistent, the amount of induction has varied to the point where half of her story may not be true. Since she is going to run my plate over tomorrow (hopefully successfully), I offered to help her organize her data using my special Microsoft Excel skills. We hope she can see 3 data sets that are close enough to go with. She is under extra pressure because our PI is leaving for a trip next week and wants this published by the end of the summer. Ahh life as a PhD student.

The good news is that there is a light that I can see and my poster is coming along nicely. I present my data on Friday to the lab and hope to complete my poster early next week before I party it up in my hometown of NYC on Pfizer's dime!