When I grow up, I wanna be a scientist! (One month and 11 days down)

I wrote the blog below on may 10th and never got around to sending it. But today I was reminded why I went to grad school to learn how to become a scientist.

Today was mind-blowing day. Today I learned to think like a geneticist. With a background in biochemistry, I'm trained to understand topics at a very basic level. However, a biochemist tries to understand either proteins or DNA and then employ techniques that allow them to understand the structure or how to understand the nuts and bolts of how that protein works. A geneticist takes away a one or more genes looks at outcomes (or phenotypes) and uses those outcomes to create a story (or model) of what the removed gene does within a cell. This approach is very direct and helps simplify very complex problems. I love it!

Today I met a potential postdoc mentor. His science was very interesting but after having lunch with him I was reminded that I really love being scientist. My lab hands are not perfect or "magic". But when things actually work I get this high that's unbelievable. Science is truly a drug you choose. What else would make me stubbornly pursue difficult topics and techniques and allow me to believe that I could just learn them and keep going. The hours are long because you have to motivate yourself. You spend days, week, months, years even working at something. Along the way, some things work and some don't. I think it took me a few years to learn how to let a project go because my heart was so invested in it I just had to make it work! In graduate school there's always some obstacle you have to work through. If its not your project, its the psychological aspect of learning how to live with and more importantly, learn from failure.

Anyway, I met this guy and he was so passionate about his science he just made me excited about science again. I get excited when things work and then that high lasts for a few days and then something else grabs your attention and your back in the trenches again, banging your head against the wall. But meeting successful scientists excite me because they remind me of who I want to be in my future career. In a perfect world I would like to be a scientist in academia and run my own lab. But the real world, the tenure clock runs right along with your biological clock and successful grant writing makes your world go round. Not to mention the fact that there are typically 200+ applicants per faculty position. There's just not that many jobs to go around.

For me, I'm gonna focus on learning as much as I can and just enjoy what I do. Don't get me wrong, my job search (post doc and faculty/senior scientist) will include both sides (academia and industry) because self preservation is the order of the day. But today, I said aloud "I would like to be in academia" to my boss, and I really meant it. I'm willing to put up with the politics and the stressful grant funding cycles, and the stress of teaching and the not living where I want (although I think I'll have to cross this bridge when it comes) to reach out, mentor, and make a difference. I want my science to make an impact on the lives of others. I don't want to study a random protein because its interesting, I want my science to apply to disease and the development of therapeautics. I don't know how I'm gonna do it, I just know that I am. And today I got that free feeling you get when you're doing what you love and you understand where you're going. It doesn't come often so I'm gonna ride it for as long as I can.

Cheers!
Chi(:

Meebo Me!

Hey people,

I talked to Sunsail online through her Meebo widget. Now you can talk to me from my blog too. So cool! If you want to add a widget to your blog go to meebome.com and hook yourself up. If I'm not online, you can send me a comment and we can set up a time to talk. Meebo is also a great way to consolidate your IM engines. You can access four at once (Aol, MSN, Yahoo, and Gtalk). I love technology (: !

Week three (Day 21?)

Hey people,
Here's the science update: Classes started on September 25 and I officially entered my 7th year of school. The bad news was that I was slightly depressed because it (the day) came and I'm still here. The good news is that between then and now, I've attended four thesis defenses and was not depressed afterwards. I was more focused on doing my own work but I was naturally happy for my friends. I think the previous depression (after a friends defense) came because I couldn't see all the way to the end. But I see it now and I'm so excited, I'm working on weekends again (part-time, I give myself a day off) and I'm motivated again.

So last week I performed an experiement that told me, "Umm Chi-chi, this is a dead-end. If you keep doing it it's gonna give you the same answer: "Stop trying to repeat me, you need to change your approach". So that's what I did. I'm changing approaches and I'm redirecting my research focus.

It's a really cool project too. But before I explain it I wanna get y'all in the game. So. . . here's a little background on DNA damage signaling ( I made these pics to explain my work to kids. Please ask permission if you want to copy them!):

Our cells are like little factories. If you look at your hand, try to imagine that the skin covering our hand is made up of little cells whose job is to lay very flat and create a barrier between our bodies and the world.

So if you think of the cell as a factory, you know that there is a blueprint that helps to design what this factory will be and a blueprint that designs the workers that carry out the needs of the factory. In our cells our DNA is the blueprint that tells the cell how to make everything that it needs to live. For example, there's a blueprint for workers that dictate when the cell will grow and when it doesn't grow. But if we remove important instructions in that blueprint (DNA damage and/or mutations), workers can be designed with the wrong directions and can do crazy things like keep the cell growing when its not supposed to (ie. cancer).

The lowest cartoon shows a worker saying, "You are not damaged, you can divide" and in the second pic the worker says, "You are damaged and cannot divide. I will fix the damage"

So I study the proteins (workers) that detect when there have been changes (DNA damage) to the blueprint and then signal to other workers that the blueprint (DNA) needs to be fixed or "repaired". This is called the DNA damage response. It's thought that there are workers that sense that the damage is present, then they notify workers that will send a signal that there's DNA damage. Once the signal is received other workers start reacting to the news by stopping the cell from growing to prevent "bad instructions" from being passed on where other worker go to the site of damage and actually fix it.


There are many ways (inside and outside of the cell) that our DNA can be damaged. For example, UV rays from the sun can damage our DNA. That's why sunblock is really important, even for black folks! Even though there are workers that can fix our DNA when it gets damaged, they don't always fix it perfectly each and everytime. So it important that we do whatever possible to protect our bodies (ie stop smoking---please don't do this, I'm talking continuous DNA damage here). But I digress.

So I'm studying a protein in yeast that we think forms the foundation for sending a signal to other workers about DNA damage. My protein doesn't do the actual signalling, we (my lab) think it forms the foundation for it. My theory that it forms a foundation on DNA at the site of damage. However, I have to show how. So, if my new plan works, I'm going to force my protein to build a platform on DNA and then check to see if a DNA damage signal is sent without the presence of damage. What I love is that if I get a no or a yes answer, I get data either way. And that means a paper (: and that means I can defend a story and graduate (:!!!

Here I am before my "RunHit Wonder" 5mile race. I feel like I'm getting ready for another race!

So now I'm learning how to manipulate yeast DNA and I'm waiting on some reagents requested from a different professor. I'm so excited and overwhelmed at the same time. It's great! This saturday, I'm hosting a nigerian independence day party so I'll show pics later. The actual day was this past sunday, but if you wanna learn more, you can check out my evite.

Talk to ya lata,
Chi(: