EBL at Diamond Light Source (DLS), dead cells and trip back to DLS

In my previous post, I have mentioned that I will be going for a week to Diamond Light Source to help out my co-supervisor with his unit. So, I just came back. The hotel we stayed at was called The Bear Hotel in Wantage and it wasn’t particularly the best. I understand its old and all of that, but it wasn’t even clean. My room was the smallest room I have ever stayed in, just a single bed and a small table just barely enough space to bring my luggage. Anyway, now I know that I won’t be returning there unless there are no other options. We had some problems during EBL with scans and data analysis but I believe students got some nice pictures to work with.

For the whole week while I was away, I was hoping that my cells would survive. Last Sunday I went to the lab and added a lot of media hoping it will be enough. This Friday at 9 pm straight from the train I went to the lab to feed the cells and I was kind of excited as they looked alive. Unfortunately, yesterday (Saturday) I went to the lab and had a look with confocal and I could see them all dying. I have included picture of them. This is quite sad as I won’t have anything to scan on our beamtime on the upcoming week.

For the beamtime I will collect samples from other people and will scan their data, not sure if my co-supervisor brings anything. Another CDT student with whom we wrote a proposal broke his elbow so he can’t work in the lab thus he won’t bring any samples either. There was an option to have all 4 day of scanning in April but they are all on bank holidays, so my co-supervisor said that he doesn’t want to do the whole experiment then. So, we have to roll with what we have. Hopefully it won’t be too bad. Tomorrow I will quickly go to the lab, collect all the samples from other guys, possibly meet my undergrads and get ready to leave on Tuesday. I am staying with Airbnb again, so I am very excited to see the family with whom I stayed and especially their lovely dogs. :)