the elusive "work" explained

For anyone who's been wondering, I've been at work long enough to be able to describe it a bit. And since I'm posting this during my pre-lunch break at work, I might as well talk about it.

I work at Stanford, in the Pediatrics Department of the Center for Clinical Science Research. My lab works with pulmonary vascular diseases, specifically pulmonary hypertension (increased blood pressure). I'm studying BMPRIA, which is a gene that, when mutated, contributes to hypertension. Essentially, it allows cells to proliferate and migrate into arteries, clogging them (or that's the hypothesis). One component of my job is phenotyping and genotyping transgenic mice. The phenotyping consists of examining and characterizing cells from control mice and mice who are heterozygous and homozygous for BMPRIA mutations. That part, thankfully, is over. The genotyping involves DNA isolation, gel electrophoresis and polymerase chain reactions--basic techniques that are fun but not directly related to experiments or data (similar to my last summer job).

The most challenging and interesting part of the job is my individual project. So far, the lab's only studied the effects of BMPRIA knockout/mutation in mice. This summer I'll be in charge of studying it in human pulmonary artery cells. This first involves culturing, feeding and generally maintaining the cells. Then, I will transfect them with short interfering RNAs, which will disrupt the mRNA activity of BMPRIA, which will then reduce the gene's protein levels. I'll have to extract the RNA to examine the RNA levels, run western blots to assess protein level, and conduct microarrays to study the gene expression. Once it's confirmed that the gene has been knocked down, we can study if and how the gene knockdown affects the migration and proliferation that leads to hypertension. This requires a slew of other experiments.

If you think all this sounds like I know what I'm doing, you've been deceived. I have less than two months to accomplish all of the above. So while I'm learning a lot in very little time, it's also more responsibility than I'm accustomed to, at least in the academic realm. If I don't exactly do the right thing in my classes, no one is really hurt except for me. Now I have tiny cells and real people depending on me.

Enough about work and onto driving, which is somewhat related to work, at least as far as how my life is set up right now (drive-work-drive). When I'm driving with other people I always prefer to be the passenger (unless that means that my mom will be driving), because I hate having to pay attention to the road. If you need directions and navigation, I'm useless. I'm only good for sleeping, daydreaming and controlling the music. But when I'm on the East Coast, I often miss driving alone. So a few unconnected thoughts concerning the two hours I now daily devote to driving. #1: The other day, I was actually "driving down the 101" while listening to Phantom Planet's "California." I've wanted to do that ever since Chris recommended the song (I've never actually seen the OC opening theme). #2: My car is about seven years old but looks and feels like it's fifteen. Every time I look at it, there's a new dent or scrape (I swear these occur spontaneously, induced by no action on my part). I used to be able to lazily drive with one hand, but now it feels unstable enough for me to have to grip the steering wheel with both hands (but not unsafe enough that I worry about it). It's not really my car because everyone else uses it when they don't want to drive their own cars (to avoid long distances from clocking on their odometers and those dents from appearing on their cars), but I use it the most so I claim it. And since I view cars as solely functional, and since it's always gotten me where I needed to go with a sufficient amount of comfort, I don't give its beat-up state much thought and actually it's become endearing. It would be too easy to make my car a metaphor for my life. #3: I hate that people use the carpool lane when they're driving BY THEMSELVES. And why, why do people insist on tailgating you when you're already miles and miles beyond the speed limit? It'll only make me go slower. Antagonism doesn't change my ways.

Things I'm excited about: #1: Ryan Gosling tonight #2: The drive (as a passenger) to LA and San Diego this weekend with half of my family #3: LA and San Diego for July 4 #4: Spiderman 2 with my family (I'm neutral towards the first Spiderman, but my parents rarely go to movies so I always enjoy any chance to see something with them. And the second promises to be much better than the first).

Back to work.