I’m back to Uni

I have returned from Italy and have already attended a conference. The trip to Italy was lovely and I have been fortunate to enjoy 13 different cities during 10 days. I also got engaged! If you are interested in checking out the tour than you can search for “Italian Discovery” with Trafalgar. Once I got back to UK I had to quickly produce and print a poster for TCES 2017 conference. The conference was very nice but unfortunately not many talks that were relevant to me. I have met a professor from Australia that does research that interests me and since I am considering of moving to Australia I have approached her and enquired about possibility doing a postdoc in her lab. She was so lovely and she told me to send her my CV, so we could sort something out in the future. Now I’m franticly trying to update my CV and make it look “extra” good :) .

[Picture of Biomaterials group members (TCES 2017 Drinks reception)]

Project update:

Definition: Transfection - is the process of inserting genetic material, such as DNA and double stranded RNA, into mammalian cells. The insertion of DNA enables the expression, or production, of proteins using the cells own machinery. In my case we make cells express fluorescence protein so we can do live imaging.

So not much to update, HUVECs have survives, but MSCs got infected while I was away and the lady was looking after them. She cured the infection, but they look very strange now. I have included picture of them. I think they might have differentiated. Now I need to get advice from my co-supervisor whether I should buy cells that are already transfected (green fluorescent) or not. If I chose to buy not transfected cells and infect them with virus myself then it will take some time until I can start working again, but I will have lots of cells and I will have both fluorescent and not fluorescent cells. If I buy already transfected (fluorescent) cells, then I can start working straight away, but I will have fewer cells and I won’t have none fluorescent control. I will need not fluorescent cells at some point as I would need to do ICC, so I won’t be able to use transfected cells. I hope this all is not too complicated for you the reader.

The plan now is to decide what cells to buy and then start working. Oh ye, the deadline for the publication that we are working on has been extended until the end of this month, so I need to keep working on that one as well. :)