It turns out I’m the worst blogger

Every weekend I realize that I need to write a blog then I usually tell myself that I will do it tomorrow and then it’s suddenly the middle of the week and I tell myself that next weekend I will write a blog post and the cycle repeats.

So, general life update:

I’m ok, going home for two weeks at the end of this month. I have also booked a tour around Italy it’s called “Italian Discovery” through Trafalgar. I wish we could go earlier or later, as we are going at the end of June which means it will be really hot. But I can’t really move it much due to other deadlines and conferences, so I try to think positively and hope that we will get a nice tan and some vitamin D. Next week I will get my bottom braces fitted, so I will again be in pain for a week. Hopefully, will lose some kilos in conjunction with my trips to the gym. Oh, the last thing is that I am now doing Paleo, which means I don’t eat any carbs or processed food, so for example no pasta, rice, potatoes, beans, bread. It probably sounds terrible to most of you but it’s not that bad at all. I thought it will be hard, but after I bought spiralizer I’m obsessed with courgettes, same as pasta and really easy to make.

Project update:

Still standing at the same place I left it. So at least my fibre analysis is moving forward, we need to submit a paper by the end of June as this will be printed for the special issue, so there is a deadline. Hopefully, I won’t have many obstacles from now on. My co-supervisor will sit with me and have a look at the data, so I will know what to do next.

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In terms of vascularisation – no progress. I had a meeting with my co-supervisor who is responsible for my cell work and even though she is on a maternity leave she managed to have a call with me. She asked me to prepare a presentation for her with all the conditions I tested to get vascularisation and while doing it I realised that last June I had vascularisation. I have missed it as I was learning how to use confocal and I didn’t pay enough attention. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a lab book until September, so all the data until then is on pieces of papers which I can’t make any sense of. Since I have no clue what were the conditions. I have thawed cells from the last summer and hopefully they will work. Otherwise, I don’t know what to do. Also, my MSCs look very strange. I am used to them looking like the left picture but the newer batch that we transfected by ourselves looks like on the right. The right ones are very slow to grow (passage once in two weeks or so), but the left ones are quite fast. Also, they are of the same passage and have the same transfection. If anyone has suggestions for why they are so different, I would gladly hear your opinion.