dMcgeadie
13th July, 2005, 5:17 PM
Hello!
I write this just as I am about to finish my second week of work as a visiting scientist at Strathclyde University Department of Immunology.
My duties there are to assist in other scientist's research and complete my own project for the Nuffield Society.
I have 4 supervisors who show me how to run through specific experiments such as an ELISA test, creating a cell culture and nourishing it and performing a cell count using a haemocytometer :p
So far, I've really enjoyed working there :)
The projects that I am working on are;
1/ Nuffield: Using plant extract to find out if it can be used in the treatment of tuberculosis: the stages would be, dividing up a plant into leaves, shoots and flowers, drying them out, grinding them up *oww... RSI as I type :( *, treating with solvents, testing the extract on human cells to see if it kills them off and if not, testing on TB cells to see if it can kill them off. This is my main reason for being in the labs for the summer, as the Nuffield people set it all up for me and give me money to cover my expenses.
2/ Now before I go any further, I dont get any formal credit for this as I'm really not doing much at all with it... 2 of my supervisors are attempting to develop an oral flu vaccine, so my role in this is to hinder them by asking for help on my own project :p or to do the tedious work of filling up pipette tip boxes or running ELISA tests on different strains of flu. The possibilities of what could be done with an oral vaccine are very important, so their research is very interesting.
Although the tasks I perform seem to not be very demanding, you soon get tired as you have to put 100% of your concentration into the job at hand; some of the chemicals that are used can be,
a) very expensive,
b) very deadly, or,
c) both.
I soon discovered that if you take a one hour kip at lunchtime you feel very refreshed later on in the day! :D
The people I work with are all surprisingly nice... I half expected to be stuck in a corner of a tiny room and ignored for the 6 weeks but theyve all acted incredible to me so far :)
I'll update this later with how I finally got on and I'll see if the crew doesnt mind photos being taken :p
~D~
I write this just as I am about to finish my second week of work as a visiting scientist at Strathclyde University Department of Immunology.
My duties there are to assist in other scientist's research and complete my own project for the Nuffield Society.
I have 4 supervisors who show me how to run through specific experiments such as an ELISA test, creating a cell culture and nourishing it and performing a cell count using a haemocytometer :p
So far, I've really enjoyed working there :)
The projects that I am working on are;
1/ Nuffield: Using plant extract to find out if it can be used in the treatment of tuberculosis: the stages would be, dividing up a plant into leaves, shoots and flowers, drying them out, grinding them up *oww... RSI as I type :( *, treating with solvents, testing the extract on human cells to see if it kills them off and if not, testing on TB cells to see if it can kill them off. This is my main reason for being in the labs for the summer, as the Nuffield people set it all up for me and give me money to cover my expenses.
2/ Now before I go any further, I dont get any formal credit for this as I'm really not doing much at all with it... 2 of my supervisors are attempting to develop an oral flu vaccine, so my role in this is to hinder them by asking for help on my own project :p or to do the tedious work of filling up pipette tip boxes or running ELISA tests on different strains of flu. The possibilities of what could be done with an oral vaccine are very important, so their research is very interesting.
Although the tasks I perform seem to not be very demanding, you soon get tired as you have to put 100% of your concentration into the job at hand; some of the chemicals that are used can be,
a) very expensive,
b) very deadly, or,
c) both.
I soon discovered that if you take a one hour kip at lunchtime you feel very refreshed later on in the day! :D
The people I work with are all surprisingly nice... I half expected to be stuck in a corner of a tiny room and ignored for the 6 weeks but theyve all acted incredible to me so far :)
I'll update this later with how I finally got on and I'll see if the crew doesnt mind photos being taken :p
~D~