Desserts

My lab is trying to make me fat before I go back to the States. Recently, we've been having tons of coffee and German desserts right after lunch. Two days ago, Sven bought me a pudding pretzel (right) because we have been talking about it for a while now. I wouldn't say I was pressured into it, but with my "sure....why not" attitude, I finally decided to try one. While we were waiting for our coffees, Florian notices a Windbeutel (left) and I thought that this was going to be a snack for another day. But Sven immediately bought it and gave it to me as a present. So here I am, after lunch arms filled with two different desserts and a cappuccino. Boy did I feel like a fatty after my filling lunch. Luckily, I split the pudding pretzel with Florian so I wasn't too much of a pig :)

Apparently, Florian and Sven were about to make a bet about when I would eat the Windbeutel (cream puff). Sven bet that I would eat the cream puff after 2 while Florian bet that despite the fact that I just at lunch, had coffee, and ate the pudding pretzel, I would still eat the puff before 2. They did not shake for the bet because Florian was not totally sure if I would eat it. However, immediately after I finished my pudding pretzel, I went for the cream puff. Obviously these guys don't know me well enough :P I never save food for later. It should have been an easy win for Florian. They told me about this bet as I was stuffing my face with cream puff. It was not pretty :P

Earlier this week, they bought me this nussecken (image from the internet because I didn't think to take a picture at the time. It's basically like a nut cookie/pie thing. It was pretty good, I liked the cookie and chocolate.

They've also fed me this thing that I can't pronounce. They described it as a cake that was dipped in chocolate (initially I thought it was a pear dipped in chocolate due to the shape). So they handed this dessert to me and dude! It felt like it had to be a least 2 pounds of something. Usually when someone describes something as a cake to you, you'd imagine a soft light cake. Well, not this thing. This has to be the densest cake I have ever tried. I was like holding a rock! It was pretty tasty the first few bites, but then the utils just declined like crazy! In the end I finished it and Florian tells me that dessert is usually for a family of 5 to be eaten in 7 days. I'm sure he was kidding, but that thing was definitely not meant for one person in one sitting. Well, too late :P I hope I won't be too fat when I get back.

Heidelberg - DAAD-RISE Meeting

This past weekend I had a meeting in Heidelberg for four days with people running the RISE program and other RISErs. The train trip down on Thursday was pretty short at 1 hr compared to other people farther away. Some had to take a train for 8 hours from Berlin before they got to Heidelberg.

The first day wasn't that eventful since the talk only consisted of the US, Canadian, and UK embassy giving us some sort of mini-speech. It was so insignificant that I can't even remember what they said. A past RISE student and a current German exchange student from California spoke to us briefly about their experiences and what has changed after their participation in the program. Most of what they talked about was how awesome Germany was which makes sense since the purpose of this DAAD-RISE program is to build connections with people around the world with Germany. They hope that in the future there would be more collaborations with researchers in Germany or for us to work there in general. At least that's what I think the whole purpose of this entire program and meeting in Heidelberg was all about.

After the meeting with everyone in the RISE committee introducing themselves, we bused over to a brewery that was kinda far out. During the entire bus ride, Karen and I were trying to build up some courage to talk to some new people (especially the ones with the English accent, Karen has the hots for those ones LOL.) In the end we didn't really make any new friends on the ride to the brewery. Since it was such a fail to meet new friends on the bus, we decided that we'd sit with some new people so we wouldn't get locked into sitting with people we already know. Once we sat down at a table, we were immediately approached by a waitress asking us what kind of beer we wanted (light or dark). That lady is like a hawk, she came within 10 seconds! The people we sat with were pretty nice except the two MIT guys kinda just talked to each other. At one point they were talking about grades I think, they were probably just talking to measure each other up and compare who is better. The two dudes had some pretty major bling going on, they were both wearing their class rings (at least that's what I think it was). They didn't really socialize with us much, they were probably just being super exclusive, since they're both from MIT and all. Anyways, the meal was alright (buffet style since we were such a large group) and I ordered a second beer. There were some random conversations and mostly small talk so I don't really remember what we talked about.

Afterwards we went back to the hostel and then we tried to find a bar near the area that Kurtis spotted before. However, it started to rain and we thought we were going in the wrong direction so we went to the bar that was located within the hostel (it was a humungous hostel that could fit 300+ people, it was more like a hotel in hostel form). I just had a cocktail at the bar and chatted with some new people. Karen, Kurtis, and I didn't want to drink too much or stay out too late since we had company visits the next morning so we didn't go out to the old town with a bunch of other RISE students.

The next day we woke up bright and early to visit companies the program chose for us to visit. We could have gone to BASF, PI, Merck, and lots of other companies. I was assigned to go to Merck, a pharaceutical company, which I have to mention is not the same Merck in America. According to our tour guide, the two Mercks used to be one company but after WWI, the company split. I'm not totally sure on the details, but the history is on Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_%26_Co. ) . The visit was pretty interesting, it made me feel that going into the industry for research would not be that bad. Honestly, it didn't seem too different than going into academia. According to some of the people who work there, they decided to go into the industry because they liked a beginning and end to their work. For instance, in academia, you are focused on one topic for the rest of your career. In my lab for example, they will be studying ADAM10 and how it affects the body when it is upregulated or downregulated, or how it can be induced or whatnot. Ok, that was a super bad explanation but point is, working in the company allows you to explore different topics. You aren't focused on one specific enzyme forever. I don't know, I think going into the industry can't be that bad. I can kinda see myself doing it and possibly not hating it. I mean, if there's always something new to do at a company, why not? At least I wouldn't be bored. But I don't want to put down my hopes to become a doctor just yet. Maybe I could try to pursue an MD/PhD but I know my GPA is not high enough to get in. *sigh* Why is life so hard.

Anyways, the visit to Merck was nice. I never knew what it meant to go into the industry so I never really thought much about it. Now that I know what going into the industry is all about, it is now a path I can think about seriously. I can already see my dad being super sad that he let me go on this internship since it might be the one thing that stops me from being a doctor :P

We arrived back at the hostel at around 5 in the afternoon so Karen and I just had our free dinner and lounged around. At dinner, we met some guys and we played foosball with them while drinking some beer. When Sarah and Kurtis finally came back to the hostel from their company visit, us and a bunch of other RISE students decided to head to the old parts of town. We bought a 20 bottle crate of beer and two six packs and went by the river at a park to just chill out and drink with other RISE students. Anyways, as you can see on the left, that is a tally of what we had to drink (we made that the next day). We first had 3 beers by the river. During this time, I was trying to master the skill to open a beer bottle with another beer bottle. I have to say I totally failed at doing that. I opened the bottle a little bit and so it just leaked most of the time. I did however succeed in opening a beer with a lighter though. It's a lot easier. Three beers,

three tries, ultimately failed to open another beer with a beer. Afterwards, Karen, Kurtis, Tanner (a Canadian we met from the river that is also in the RISE program), and I went bar hoping in the old town area. It was an entire street of bars, and we just went into each one and

got a shot pretty much. I have to mention that I had to pee during our walk there so I was preeeetty delusional during our trip. I mean come on, with three beers in my belly, how can I not have the urge to urinate. In the end, we snuck into a restaurant to use their toilet. So relieved by the end of it :P Anyways, got to the bars/clubs and drank lots. Keep in mind all these shots probably occurred within 2-3 hours? This may seem like a long time, but if you're light weight like me, it was preeetty crazy.

Anyways, at one point we say some people order some shots that were ON FIRE! So I'm like, dude, I got to get me some of those. So we asked the bartender which shots could be lit on fire and he said B52s! So I tried to order 4 shots of B52 but they were not served lit on fire. So I'm like what the heck?!?! I just brought our drinks back to the table and then tried to light them on fire. They were lit very briefly but did not stay lit up. Total fail on my part. So Tanner thought he'd give it a try and ordered 4 more B52s from the bartender and asked how to light them on fire. Apparently you have to put your lighter/fire on the drink for a pretty long time to get them lit. So Tanner has them all lit up at the bar so we're super excited. He decides to bring the glasses of shot that are ON FIRE to the table which.....may or may not have been a good idea. But hey, we weren't totally there. He brought 3 of the shots to the table without spilling a drop but for the last one...he spilled a bit on the table so then the table was ON FIRE!!! (and so was Kurtis's hand cuz he spilled some of it on his hand while trying to pick it up). So I ended up blowing out all the B52s :( Later on in the night, I felt my hair and one side definitely had a different texture. I looked at it and guess what I found....burnt hair -____- I didn't even know when it happened! (well I do, but I didn't know at the time when my hair was actually on fire). Good thing only a little bit of it was burnt off. Don't worry, my hairdo is still symmetrical :).

4 beers and 10 shots later (throughout the night), it was time to head home at 2:50am because the bus leaves at 3 or something at Bismarkplatz. So we start treking back but Karen saw another bar, so we had to go in and have another shot :P At this point, I felt a little bit queasy and so I didn't have another one but one of the dudes wasn't too far gone yet, so I had to order him a shot. Since it would be quite sad if he had to drink the shot alone, I ordered a shot for myself as well (2 blowjobs, one each). Ok, I didn't drink the blow job correctly because I didn't feel like it at 3am and I'm pretty queasy so I didn't do the lift shot w/ mouth then tip head back thing. I just downed it like a normal shot. To be honest, I don't remember how it tasted like, but it was probably ok. Since it was already way past when the last bus came, we had to walk back to the hostel and we didn't get back until like 4am. On the way, the boys had the urge, so they had to pee in a bush/tree. Of course none of us really cared because if you have to go, you gotta go :P

That night I threw up a little bit before going to bed. I made the mistake of not eating a little bit or at least drink a lot of water before sleeping so I felt quite queasy until lunch. So that morning we were supposed to listen to presentations from other RISE scholars in the program this summer (they volunteered themselves to talk about their project). I was very curious as to what type of person would submit themselves to such torture. There were a total of 5 students that were presenting from the biology section of the program. Only two of them were actually pretty good in that they explained their project well and the pulled the audience into what they were saying. The other students just seemed way too nervous and didn't really explain their projects well enough so that people in the room understood what their project was about. The entire time, I would be wondering what is the point of their project (it's significance in the real world) and what exactly they were doing to prove whatever they wanted to prove. Some of the not as good presenters didn't really seem like people that would volunteer themselves to do something like this. It's possible that they were probably just trying to challenge themselves and whatnot.

Anyways, as I said earlier, I was pretty queasy so I couldn't pay attention to everything they were saying (this could be why 3/5 presenters weren't that good to me, but Karen agreed!). Near the end of all the presentations, I was basically tuning them out and trying to control the weird feeling I had in my throat/stomach telling me that I might have to throw up. Thankfully I did not, but afterwards, we were supposed to have lunch so I tried to get rid of this queasy feeling in the lady's room. Sadly, I couldn't do it and I am not skilled enough to stick a finger down my throat to make myself throw up. I eventually threw up a little after I smelt the food and threw up outside by a bush in front of a good amount of people. That was pretty embarrassing.

Hold up, in defense I was drinking that much last night because it was Kurtis's last night in Germany and I was never going to see him again probably. Also, I want to say I knew what I was doing and I wasn't going to do anything stupid that would endanger myself. As I was drinking, I was gauging my condition as well. I realize that my blog posts consist of a lot of drinking and I don't want to be seen as an alcoholic when I come back to the States. It just happens when anything post worthy happens, I'm drinking. On normal days, I'm just at my flat making pasta for myself to eat. Otherwise, I would be out at a cafe with Karen/Kurtis/Sarah to have a nice dinner with some coffee or something.

Ok, back to the weekend. I'm going to zoom through this because I've been writing this post for a week now and never got around to finishing it because I'm being too detailed about boring stuff. Anyways, we toured around the city and I moved into a different hostel in Heidelberg that afternoon (I couldn't book an extra night at the hostel I was already staying at) and then Karen and I trekked over to the park by the river for a BBQ hosted by one of the RISE students located in Heidelberg. We bought beer (2.5% girly stuff) and some meat on a stick.

Pondzie inside the castle, you can see parts of the town and the river in the background.

As we were walking to the river, Karen and I were approached twice by a bachelor and bachelorette party. Here in Germany, bachelor/bachelorette parties aren't like those depicted in American blockbusters/himym where there would be some crazy drinking and strip clubs. Instead, bachelor parties consist of a good amount of drinking at various locations (they usually have a list where they just check it off) and they all wear matching t-shirts. The groom is also expected to do very embarrassing things such as asking random girls for numbers or something (yesterday, we were approached by a groom dressed as a surgeon holding syringe shots of some mixed drinking. He was trying to sell it to us). It is a very embarrassing ordeal. Bachelorette parties are quite similar in the drinking and stuff and I think they tend to sell stuff to "fund their wedding". At least that's what they said. Alright, back to the ones that approached us. A groom approached us and got our number and a bride (I don't these two people were marrying each other because there were A LOT of different bachelor(ette) parties going on in this old part of Heidelberg) just handed us a lot of candy and penis cookies. Yes, that's right. Penis cookies. I think they just gave a bunch to us because it was getting dark and they had to get rid of their goods :P

The rest of the trip wasn't quite as eventful. I drank three 2.5% girly beers, each time attempting to open it with another beer and still failed. Afterwards, we went to the old part of town to maybe get some drinks but I didn't since I was still suffering from the night before. The next morning we just went up the philosopher's walk which is on the hill directly opposite from the castle and got a nice view of the town. The following picture is me at the top of the hill :)

I have to mention during this entire trip, I was very very happy sleeping in a bed with some sheets and a proper pillow. I don't remember if I mentioned this in a previous post, but after I moved into the new flat, I found that they didn't provide any bedding and so I'm too cheap to buy some. Currently a running shirt filled with more running shirts with a nice knitted scarf (makes the "pillow" more snuggle-able) on top is being used as a pillow. For a blanket, I am using a fitted sheet borrowed from another RISE student located in Mainz. Initially, I used my jacket as a blanket. You might think, why not just buy one! But then I'm just going to dump it/leave it when I leave and I already only have 2 weeks left! Don't worry, I'll make it :P

And that's pretty much my Heidelberg trip, near the end of the post, I cut out random details you didn't need to know about like lunch and blah blah blah, because come on, how interesting can that be. I'm going to finish the new post I started now :P

Internet

I know it was kinda weird how I haven't been posting on my blog after posting daily, but it's because I didn't have any internet at my flat! The place downstairs that helps you set it up was only open once every two weeks (now three weeks since I was too lazy to finish and post this last week :P) and I just missed it when I moved in -___-

After not posting consistently about my adventures, it's difficult to start up again. Similar to procrastination, once it's stop and the things you have to do/talk about pile up, the less you feel like doing it :P So, I'll just blast you guys through the last two weeks.

1.5 weeks into the internship

I found out quite suddenly through email that Daniel (the person I was subletting from) was returning from Greece the next day. So, I had to quickly pack my bags overnight and I left the flat the next morning when Sven picked me up to go to work. Throughout the day, I constantly called Daisy (the flatmate for the new flat) so that I could pick up the keys for the new flat but she failed to pick until an hour before work ended. When she did pick up, she told us that she would not be home until 7 or 8 o’clock at night (we ended work at around 5). Sven seemed pretty impatient during this whole ordeal and he decided to call the housemaster and pay a €15 fee in order to open the door to the new flat. We just needed to provide a contract to the housemaster to tell him that I was actually living in the flat.

When the housemaster finally came to open the door for us, he told us that the contract we had was illegal. There had to be a separate form submitted by the tenant to the StudentNetwork (the school owns the complexes) tell them that she was releasing her contract to me. So the angry man kept yelling at Sven in German and Sven continued to argue with him for another 15 minutes to convince him that we were unaware that Ekaterina (the person I’m subletting from) had not submitted the other form and that we had a separate contract written by Ekaterina telling us we were allowed to live there. Basically, there was a lot of screaming from the “angry man” (that’s what Sven and I refer to him as) and Sven trying to calmly talk to him and telling the angry man not to treat Sven like a child by yelling at Sven the way he did.

Well, in the end I was not let into the apartment and Sven refused to wait for Daisy to come back at 7 or 8 because we believed if we moved in that night, it would have been illegal since the StudentNetwork was not notified. We then drove to the town where Florian lived since Florian’s family owns a winery and his house doubles as a mini hotel (just 3 rooms available like a hotel). We got there and called Florian, but he said the rooms where booked until Sunday. During the entire time that we were waiting in Florian’s town for Florian to call us back (when we initially called him, he didn’t pick up because he was at the gym), it seemed like Sven was seriously panicking about how to get rid of me. Well, that’s how it felt like since he was willing to pay the €15 earlier and he was constantly calling Florian. I was thinking that it should be totally fine if I just stayed over at Sven’s flat. Maybe it’s a cultural thing and the fact that he was living with his girlfriend that he felt it was not right to have me stay over. I’m not sure what he was feeling at the time, but if it was me back in the States, I would relinquish my couch or something for a friend or someone to stay over if they needed it. I’m not sure what to feel about this and I don’t know who to ask to see if this was a cultural thing. (I wrote this section on Word a couple weeks ago but in hindsight, Sven was mostly likely just worried about where I was going to stay rather than trying to "get rid of me" as I put it before. Like I said before, Sven is a very nice guy and I don't know why I put it this way at the time. I guess it just felt really odd as I was experiencing it.)

Anyways, point is that I wasn’t able to stay at Florian’s place and so I stayed in a mini hotel a few houses down from where Sven lives. It was a nice little place that was like a restaurant/hotel (entry through the front leads to the restaurant, and entry through the back/side was to the hotel). The room was small and fit for a single but overall it was quite nice. I’m not quite sure how much the room cost since Sven paid for it but it was good. (another thing I didn’t understand, I mean, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just let me sleep on your couch than for me to stay at a hotel? I just don’t understand….). Anyways, I’ve been internet-less since Wednesday night and I’m currently writing this on a word document on a Sunday night. I thought there would have been internet at the hotel since there was a sign that said internet, but when I actually plugged the LAN cable in, it didn’t work at all. I checked the cable and I noticed that 4 out of 8 of the mini wires within the cable was missing *face palm*. I don’t know how the hotel managed to buy a faulty internet cable or maybe they bought a phone cable and tried to change it into an Ethernet cable, but that was majorly retarded. Anyways, I basically just slept the entire time at the hotel because I had absolutely nothing else to do. I watched a couple Jet Li movies on my laptop, but that was only entertaining for a little bit. Like I said before, some things don’t cut it when you’re not procrastinating.

The picture to the right was taken from my room. Sven picked me up the next morning and we went to the university to speak to the StudentNetwork. When we arrived, it seemed like she knew our purpose there and told us the matter has been resolved. Apparently, the angry man had called the StudentNetwork to give them a heads up that two people (Sven and I) were going to come over in the morning to argue about the contract. Luckily, she told us that Ekaterina did leave a form telling the StudentNetwork that she was going to leave the rest of the contract to me. So we just went back to the flat, talked to the angry man and got my keys to move into the flat. During the ride to the flat, I realized that I had left my jeans with all my keycards at the hotel and I was so embarrassed when I told Sven but we drove all the way back to get my keycards (and my jeans on the side, but mainly for the keycards). Anyways, news spread like wildfire and by the end of the day Florian, Tina, and other people from the lab next door knew that I left my pants in some hotel. Sven said that he had to tell because he needed to explain why we were late to work. Excuses!

My new room for the next 1.5 months

That night I also made donuts with my friends. I learned that donuts were fried and not baked. You really do learn something new everyday :P Btw, they were uber delicious.

Blast through 4 weeks of internship

I'm going to update more on what I did these past few weeks when I come back from Heidelberg if I ever get to it. Here's a short overview of what I did.

***BBQ Monday to celebrate Benjamin's birthday; I bought 2 bottles of Jagermeister at 8 o' clock in the morning. I was pretty embarrassed :P

***Wine tasting at Florians (10 different wines--5 whites, 5 reds; Jagermeister shots); I also tried blood sausage which tasted more plain than nasty and I had liver sausage which had tuna texture. Pretzels and dip were also served with the wine so that we wouldn't get drunk too fast :P It was all very delicious especially that dip! I forget the name but dude, it’s freakin amazing! It’s some sort of cream cheese that is only made in this region. I really have to look up a recipe for it.

The wine was pretty good but I couldn't really rate which ones would be better and whatnot since I'm still not used to wine. It tastes a bit funny to me but I definitely like whites more than reds. During the wine tasting, Florian's sister gave a presentation about how the wine was made and how many acres of land was used to grow the grapes or whatever it was they used to make the wine. Before we drank the wine, we were always supposed to swirl the glass and smell what was inside the wine. Every time I sniffed my glass, I thought it smelled pretty similar. I couldn't really distinctly smell the scent of strawberries, cherries, or whatever fruit we were supposed to smell from the cup >.< By the end of the tasting, I was pretty tipsy. Not as tipsy as later in the week when I drank a beer tower, but I knew I was feeling it :P

Karen and me at the end of the wine tasting.

***Shared a 5L beer tower between 3 people (me, Kurtis, Karen). By the end of it, I was preeetty tipsy (you can probably categorize it as drunk). It took us around 2 hours to finish the tower because we didn't want to get too smashed. Afterwards I walked home and being so tipsy, it was kind weird :P

Our 5L beer tower.

We each had 1.66 L of beer and one shot of Jagermeister that was on the house. The picture above is just a picture showing our accomplishment. All done!

***I went to Cologne. I climbed all 509 steps to reach the top of the cathedral. It was pretty scary by the time I got to the top because at that point it wasn't just a stone spiral staircase where you wouldn't see the outside, it was more of a railing that I had to climb up and I could see the bottom a bit and I'm afraid of heights :\ The hike up the tower for the view was pretty hard, you can hear people wheezing throughout the staircase wondering if they're going to make it. Good thing I'm still in semi-shape :P Staring at the cathedral from the outside kind of messes with you. The cathedral is just so huge! and the shape, the color, and all the carvings in the cathedral really ruins your perception of the cathedral. The picture below is taken 100m away from the cathedral and I still couldn't even capture the main entrance into the cathedral. We spent a good amount of time as we were going around Köln to find an angle where we could get a good view of the cathedral. The last picture with the two of us was the best picture we could get sorta. We had to use our heads to try to block out the buildings :P That angle is the most exposed we could find the cathedral when you're farther away. Even with the cathedral so big, it's hard to get a good picture if there are always these buildings around and we couldn't sneak into a taller building, so we just made the best of it.

I went to the chocolate museum while I was there and I have to say I was slightly disappointed. Going into the museum, I was expecting more of a chocolate tasting kind of scenario rather than exhibits about the history of chocolate and a section showing how chocolate bars are made. The part where they showed how they made chocolate was pretty cool, but as you guys might know, I'm not really good with history and so I don't like it. The only free samples I got was when I purchased my ticket and a cracker dipped in hot chocolate sample :(

***Drank cocktails to celebrate Tina's birthday with the entire lab. We finished work and then walked over just when it was happy hour :) So cocktails were only 4.80 Euro each. I had a Strawberry Mojito (it was only ok compared to the other drinks I had), Zombie (for the amount of alcohol it has in it, it sure was fruity!), Blanco 43 (it tasted like the left over milk after you finished eating all the cereal. Another dangerous drink :P), and two Coronas. I also ate a seafood Paella because I had a craving :P

Sven and I both had Zombies. This picture tells me that I need to lose weight. lol. As you can see from the picture on the bottom, the Zombie drink has two types of Rum, some 73% alcohol, and some fruity Brandy. Dangerous sweet drink :P

After typing all that out, I don't think I'm going to make another post for each event. Hope all that above was good enough.

What I've been doing at work

As for lab, things are going alright I guess. I learned how to make competent cells (they weren't that competent though, DNA doesn't seem to transform properly into the bacterial cells so I will redo this competent cell preparation). I learned how to transform a plasmid into the DH5-alpha cells and then extract the plasmid to be used for later experiments. I've been running a lot of agarose gels and we've sent the plasmid I obtained for sequencing. The results were just like how it looked like in the text books for the Sanger DNA sequencing method. Originally, I transformed three different plasmids into three different cell cultures but only one was successful in reproducing the desired plasmid. Apparently the other two plasmids might have been altered because of chemicals from the company we got the plasmids from. These chemicals probably won't allow us to store the plasmid for long periods of time at minus 80C.

I've been learning a lot of stuff and Sven is a really good teacher. He's very patient and would not mind explaining everything if I didn't understand. At the same time, he tries to get the correct answers from me before he tells me anything. Sometimes I get it right with my guessing (well, sort of guessing) but if not, he'll try giving me hints to push me towards the right answer. :)

Recently I've also been observing how Sven is creating a vector with a deletion in it. It's a pretty long process that requires a lot of agarose gels and eluting the DNA from the agarose gel after running it for 45 minutes. Sven's going to finish that experiment while I'm in Heidelberg.

As for my actual project, I've done four identical promoter assays to measure the effects of the transcription factors on promoter activity for various proteins (ADAM10, BACE1, APP, Control reporter vector). The actual time it takes to do this assay takes only two days, which is why I had a lot of mini projects. Hopefully my results are going to be ok. The standard deviations are a little high for some of the conditions but it might work. One of the problems I'm having is that the results I have aren't the same as Sven's. Apparently he's sorta done this assay before and I have not reproduced his results which implies my results might not be reliable apparently. But we will see when we analyze the data next week to see which values to exclude and whether results were significant.

I've also started the western blot of my project and I must say it's a lot more work than the promoter assay. There's so much well scratching and whatnot to get the lysate from the 12-well plate that my arm gets super tired. Then I have to resuspend protein pellets streaked across a 1.5 ml tube with just 15 ul and that takes like 3 minutes of pipetting up and down the tube. With 12 tubes, that's like 36 minutes of constant pipetting. My thumb was getting major workout by the end of it. My samples are currently in the freezer and ready to be loaded onto the gel. I'll get to see my results hopefully next week after my Heidelberg RISE meeting.

Anyways, talk to you guys in a week!