No one is ever above politics.

And being subjected to lab politics sometimes sucks.

I know that I’ve written about lab politics before, but previously it always had “jokey” undertones (or at least what I imagined to be “jokey” undertones). But now for the first time, I am experiencing the negatives of lab politics.

For those of you who know me well, you will know that my research has to do with Alzheimer’s disease, but that my situation is unique in that I am working on Alzheimer’s disease in a lab full of cancer researchers.

As a result, sometimes it’s hard to “collaborate” with other people in the lab since we’re all pretty much working on different things.

But earlier this year, I was given the opportunity to work on a project with another researcher in our lab. I had the blessings of my graduate student and the post-doctoral fellow who I would be working with, and even though it meant that I would be taking time from working on my own project to help with this project, my graduate student said that it was ok because it would be a good experience for me to learn how to work on a different project.

As a result, for a while, I was doing double duty in the lab, working with both my graduate student and the post-doctoral fellow.

After an extremely hectic week of studying, sleep deprivation, and exams, I find that at the end of exams, my week is still not over, and I still have piles of work falling on my head.

Tomorrow, not only do I have to prepare answers to round table questions for the Howard Hughes undergrad research seminars tomorrow, but I also have to review three articles for the Undergraduate Science Journal as well.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I had only managed to get everything done in a timely manner, rather than procrastinating and putting everything off until the end of exams.

But my reviews on these three articles are due tomorrow, and I want to do a good job reviewing them. But I have to say, if it were my article, I would not want it to be reviewed by me in my current state. I don’t want to be one of those witchy reviewers who is nit picky about the littlest of things, but I am dead tired right now, and frustrated.

I probably would have enjoyed the review process a lot more if it were not for the fact that I waited until today to start it.

“Do you go to lab every single day of your life? … Because I think you do.”

Well then… all of my friends are under the impression that I am a prisoner of my lab.

“Oh, you’re hanging out with us today? No lab then?” or ”Whoa! Amazing! You have made an appearance in our lives! Lab has set you free?”

I am NOT a prisoner. I am perfectly capable of stopping any time I want… barring when I am not conducting experiments that require my immediate attention, or taking care of cells or mice.

Science will crush you.

This is the game for crazy people. If you’re not crazy enough, you’ll encounter a lot of frustrations.

I would turn back the hands of time to May 2009. Because everything was perfect then.

It’s 2010 now, and quite frankly, I really want nothing more than to go back to the way things were.

Tomorrow will be my first day back in lab after taking a break for a couple weeks to relax and recuperate from finals and the stress of fall quarter. But lab is not going to be the same.

JJ is gone. S is gone. Three of the undergrads from our lab have already left us. Another one is due to be leaving soon. And at the end of this quarter, one more undergrad will leave us.

It’s a strange feeling, to know that you’ll be the senior undergrad, if not in age, but in the length that you have been a member of the lab. It’s strange to know that some of the key people who you looked up to as mentors and examples of what a good grad student or a good post-doc– what a good researcher should be like– these people will all be gone. These people were not merely mentors, examples, and colleagues– they were friends, and it’s always sad to see a friend go.

In this case, it feels like I have to watch a lot of friends go in a short period of time.

Within the next few months, lab is going to look dramatically different. That’s an especially scary thought, given that it already does.

You know you’ve been in lab a long time when you’re there for a changing of the guard– when the people you “grew up” with have all moved on to the next phases of their careers, and you’re still there, remembering what was.

Today was a day full of new happenings for me.

First of all, I began work on my new “mini-project” with a post doctoral fellow in my lab. This project is completely different from the main and side projects I have worked on previously, but it is always exciting to learn something new and to work with new people. When I interviewed for the Howard Hughes program, I was asked about other fields of science that I was interested in, and I thought of so many off the top of my head. I love that science is a dynamic field that changes everyday, and that it will never be possible to have a complete understanding of everything that goes into it– that to me is what makes scientific research exhilarating.

I won’t go into too much detail about my new project here since there is the possibility of a publication sometime in the future, but it is related to autophagy, which is something I had never given much thought to before. However, after reading a couple papers to prepare for this new project, I have discovered that autophagy is actually quite a nifty cellular activity and quite smart in some ways too. I have broad research interests– I can make it work. In any case, I guess this new research project will be a way for me to transition into other work as I prepare for the imminent departure of my graduate student mentor.

However, this brings me to my next point.

I attended my first thesis defense today! It’s kind of shameful for me to admit that prior to today, I had not ventured off and attended other defenses, but a small part of me feels that a thesis defense is an intimate affair between the “defender”, his committee, his labmates and friends, and his family. This much was made clear to me during today’s defense, and I am not sure how meaningful it would have been for me going to the thesis defense of a complete stranger. I know that the scientist in me would be ashamed of this attitude and question my thirst for new knowledge, but I am actually quite glad that the first defense I ever attended was that of someone who I knew decently well– a labmate, a mentor, and a friend.

I was recently accepted to the Howard Hughes research program at my university, and since then, I have been flooded with advice about my future and career in research.

At the same time however, some people who I used to count on for advice, have stopped giving it. I am a third year now, and it’s time for me to make some decisions for myself– to grow up and realize that there isn’t always going to be someone there for me to talk to about what I should do with my life.

I never wanted to be treated like a child and told “Do this. No, you can’t do that. You SHOULD be doing this. Why are you doing that?”, because I want my independence and the ability to make decisions for myself.

But sometimes, just sometimes, when the world feels like it’s falling on your head, it’s nice to be able to run to someone and have them tell you that everything is going to be ok, and that what you want to do is going to turn out just fine.

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the more we age, the more the world starts to crumble beneath our feet and above our heads, and the more people start to run away and let you figure out how to escape from your own messes by yourself.

I am filled with conflicting emotions right now.

You are asked to write a 500 word, very short article for Scientific American about the Nipah Virus and its biology of infection. Use the data presented in class as your knowledge base. Write the article assuming that it is written for educated non-scientists (the target audience for Sci Am). Make sure to include a catchy title; something that will make a reader want to peruse your article.

So I realize that many of you will probably not read this because it’s more “thinky” and many of you just are not interested in biology the way I am. However, I thought that maybe some of you would appreciate learning about Nipah virus. This was something that written for a research seminar class that I took a couple years ago. I am currently taking a class dealing with similar material and thought it would be good to re-post this blog entry.

Ebola, AIDS, Avian flu, and SARS—serious diseases that plague our past, present, and future. All caused by viruses. Does the mere mention of these diseases run a shiver down your spine? Does the threat of pandemic send you scurrying indoors?

Maybe not, but perhaps this virus will—Nipah.

Recently, I have been working on a quantification project that involves me quantifying things blindly without knowing the genotypes.

I’m sure to most of you, this seems like simple enough work. You just quantify, and in the end, when you analyze the data, you get to learn what the genotypes were.

However, for me, being one who likes to have a sense of closure and have a general idea of the way things are going or where they are headed, this process has been absolute agony.

I sit in front of the computer, fretfully wondering, “Are you a knock-out? I hope you’re a knock-out. If you’re not a knock-out, that will be bad. Oh dear, are you a wild-type? You shouldn’t be a wild-type. What if you are a wild-type. Does that mean that things are not what we think they are? Oh no oh no oh no…”

I want to know what the genotypes are. I want to take a peek at the slide labels and have some satisfaction of knowing that things are going the way they are supposed to be going.

When my graduate student looks at my data, he simply goes, “Hmm, we’ll see.”

We’ll see? What does that mean? Does that mean things are not going well? Does that mean things are looking the way we want them to?

I want desperately to know. As a result, I have been quantifying like the wind. The sooner I finish, the sooner I get to know, and the sooner I get to analyze my data.

The moral of the story: To make Lillian finish her work faster, make her do something blind so that she has to finish quickly in order to satisfy her insatiable curiosity.

I missed lab meeting today. It was slightly on purpose. Today was the first day of class, and I was deathly tired already. As a result, I decided to sleep in, and ended up missing lab meeting.

However, my sleep was not peaceful. I ended up dreaming about going into lab, only to have people be angry at me for missing lab meeting. I also dreamed that we were celebrating people’s birthdays by having cake at lab meeting, and by the time I showed up, there was no cake left, and people just kept shaking their heads at me saying, “If only you had been a good undergrad and gone to lab meeting.”

I have always tried to plan my class schedule around lab meetings so that I have no class during those times and can actually go to lab meetings because they are important for the lab. But somehow, I still end up missing some.

I go home, have errands to run, or life just gets in the way. And sometimes… I sleep in.

But after this morning’s fretful rest, I’m not sure how wise it would be to continue this behavior. Time to buckle down and be a good responsible undergrad and GO TO THOSE LAB MEETINGS.