Failure and Success!..
…by Phoebe / from the United Kingdom / PhD Tissue Repair 2013-2017
Unfortunately this month my experiments didn’t quite go to plan which was very frustrating. Despite this frustration I still ran the full FACS experiment I had planned but altered the aim somewhat! I stained with the Flow antibody panel previously optimised and ran an analysis of the endometrial cell populations present after our specific tissue digest protocol- basically gathering baseline data I can use as controls for the next time! I also sorted out stromal cell and pericyte populations again to run gene analysis on control samples. So all in all I still generated data just not the exciting results I was hoping for!
In other work I am in the process of comparing post menstrual and postpartum tissues for a panel of protein markers that have previously been investigated by others in the lab to see if I can find major similarities and differences in the two processes as an initial study; and have been planning how to further the immune cell work by running a phagocytosis assay on different cell populations! So busy and exciting!
I’d just like to take some time to also praise the recent achievements of my lab group: Professor Philippa Saunders has secured a programme grant to support all of the important work we do (AMAZING); in the recent trip to Montreal for the SRI AnnuaI Scientific Meeting Dr Douglas Gibson won the postdoc poster prize while Bianca Deleo won the PhD poster prize (so proud and in awe!); Yannis Simistidellis has finished his write up and now has a beautiful Thesis to his name; Bianca was granted funding as a result of entering the Deanery of Clinical Sciences Funding Challenge; Frances Collins has a talk in ESHRE in Helsinki; Dr Pete Sanderson presented a successful poster at the Obs and Gynae Annual Academic meeting in London; Lisa Hilferty has completed her honour’s project with many successful results; and Arantza and Olympia continue to work extremely hard on behalf of us all. SO I AM VERY PROUD OF EVERYONE AND VERY PLEASED TO BE PART OF SUCH A BUSY AND HIGH ACHIEVING GROUP 😀 😀 😀
And as for me I go to Sardinia next week for the ENII Immunology Summer School and apart from figuring out how to travel from Stanstead to Gatwick in London I am pretty much set to go! My abstract was chosen for an oral presentation so I have been working hard to put a presentation together which I practised with my lab group yesterday- they seemed pleased with the result so now I just have to go and perform it! I also have my poster made and printed so it is all becoming very real and exciting- a full week in Sardinia of sun, sea and science…what’s not to love!
In personal life, I had an extremely belated birthday party to celebrate with my older sisters birthday by hosting a fabulous party in Espionage which was a fantastic night enjoyed by all of course! I also made a much discussed three course meal (first one I have ever attempted) for myself and Andy to surprise him with my culinary and homemaker skills, which went down swimmingly especially the scrumptious chocolate and Bailey’s cheesecake I made for pudding, the leftovers of which I shared with my lab group and they concurred it was SPLENDID! And on the topic of Andy we have decided to move in together so are in the process of looking for somewhere to live which is a lot more stressful than I ever expected it to be…but hopefully we will have a new home together come July 😀
So life is full and fast but still enjoying it.
Until next time!
XXX
