Today was our LAST day of wet lab. Personally, I had ambivalent feelings— I was faced with both the jubilation of no longer having to deal with our limited enzyme stock alongside the tribulation of missing pipetting. However, I’m sure we will still work at the lab and continue to play with the chairs through this week : )
Anyway, we started the morning by setting up and performing our dose response curve experiments to determine the IC50 values of our chosen enzymes. And we were left with an astounding 10 µL of enzyme afterwards. This was a common Puccinia L, but we persevered to obtain a beautiful graph! #PatheticProtein 😅
After failing to convince the TAs to let us leave for lunch early (it worked before… we got Starbucks during mid-lab), we went out for lunch at 11:30 AM. I chose Zen at the Union to satisfy my daily orange chicken cravings. I must admit, the first three to five bites were amazing, but then it got kinda boring.
Meanwhile, we had our reaction running for an hour, so we rushed back to CHAS to check the spectrophotometer. The results were… rough. Although they were not as concerning as a negative Z score prior to inhibitor screening, they were odd and produced strange sigmoidal curves that made us question if our protein denatured. Dr. Hall even had to show us the previous year’s data to prove that some curves could, in fact, look good. After multiple breakdowns and complex recalculating (or sketchy data manipulation) by Sehyun, we obtained satisfactory results with I2 on top!
In addition, we had a medical emergency with Brian’s finger. As he was sliding around the room on his chair, poor Brian grabbed onto the leg of a lab table and got a piece of metal into his finger. The dynamic duo consisting of Dr. Hall & Dr. Das intervened and rescued him with skillful extraction of the piece and application of ethanol.
For blog purposes, I was a little disappointed that today was not as eventful as a strenuous day in the lab (e.g., protein purification, first day of steady-state kinetics, etc.) or an exciting field trip to Argonne. However, it perfectly captures the experience of an “average” day in the lab — one with minimal/moderate lab stress — but also packed with playing the free version of GeoGuessr, investigating into the deaths of Group 9’s glove balloons (Eric), and learning about Kyra’s music taste (which was respectable until she started playing Olivia Rodrigo). Like van der Waals interactions, weak at the individual level but strong as a collective unit, I think these small, exciting moments best represent the experience here.
The relatively laid back and relaxing weekend juxtaposed with the rush this morning perfectly depicts the pace of this program. It is nowhere near goodbye time yet with a packed final week involving final inhibitor design and the report. However, it is fascinating to reflect on how fast time flies at SSP. While the biochem lectures and labs are fun, the 35 amazing people I’ve met here are the highlights of the experience so far. The group dynamic had completely changed by the end of the first week, and now I feel like I’ve known some of the people here my entire life.
As we fly through the last full week here, I am excited to continue this shared “educational experience of a lifetime,” even after the program “ends.”
Hello everyone! I am Sai, and I am a rising senior at North Attleboro High School in Massachusetts. In my free time, I enjoy exploring new music, binge watching Netflix, and traveling.
