{"id":223,"date":"2009-02-16T22:42:24","date_gmt":"2009-02-16T22:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/02\/16\/on_winding_down\/"},"modified":"2009-02-16T22:42:24","modified_gmt":"2009-02-16T22:42:24","slug":"on_winding_down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/02\/16\/on_winding_down\/","title":{"rendered":"On winding down"},"content":{"rendered":"

bq. My friend Jenny<\/a> and I are moving in perfect reciprocity at the moment, so we thought it would be entertaining to plot our opposing curves simultaneously. I am leaving science for a career in publishing, funnily enough at the same publishing company where Jenny had her first editorial job. She left<\/a> there to return to the bench, and is finding herself ramping up<\/a> in the lab, as I wind down. Here is my perspective:<\/em><\/p>\n

\nWednesday, late afternoon.<\/p>\n

\nThe rattle of the roller door, closing off the loading bay, disturbed my reverie. I had just rounded the corner on the last flight of stairs: ice bucket under one arm, key to the freezer room in hand. With my dirty lab coat I even looked like a scientist.<\/p>\n

\nI unlocked the door and put the ice bucket down. Lifting the lid to our lab’s minus 80 and scrabbling for my secret stock of DE3 RILs, I suddenly wondered,<\/p>\n

\nWhat am I<\/em> doing here?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nBecause, as you know<\/a>, I’m leaving this lab at the end of February. Leaving this lab, leaving Australia, leaving the practice of science as a career. A one-way trip into publication, communication, whatever next I happen to think is a good idea.<\/p>\n

\nSo why is it that I’m doing experiments? More than that, starting<\/em> experiments? I ordered some primers and ran a PCR last week. Ran a Western for my young apprentice, who was at Lorne. This week I’m going to set up a knock-down experiment and see if I can confirm the exon microarray data. I’m going to start cross-linking chromatin to see if we can do CLIP assays<\/a>. I’m even (help me, please) about to autoclave some media so that I can grow up some protein. On Friday I made up three years’ supply of mountant for fluorescence microscopy.<\/p>\n

\nI am supposed to be winding down. Maybe the last couple of months, where all I have done is analyse microarray data and document the perl programs I’ve written, are responsible for spurring me into a last-gasp frenzy of experimentia. For this is, quite probably, the last time I’ll set up an RT-PCR. The last time I’ll design and order primers. The last time I’ll mix together marmite-smelling powders, or certain salts with lactose and glycerol, and book the incubator overnight at 34°C.<\/p>\n

\n\"Cell<\/p>\n

\nMy cells! Who do I trust to look after my babies? Who will keep the list of frozen cells organized, who will maintain that instinct of passage dilutions and timings? Who is there to get annoyed when students from other labs stick their dirty fingers in my pasteur canister? Who, in fact, will do the lab’s cell biology?<\/p>\n

\nI have two weeks to ensure my notes are up to date, that my stocks are labelled and catalogued, that, basically, the next person can pick up where I left off. This should happen whenever anyone moves on from a lab; but there is an air of finality about this time.<\/p>\n

\nSoon, although I might not know it at the time, it will be the last time that I’ll hold a “Gilson”:http:\/\/network.nature.com\/people\/UE19877E8\/blog\/2009\/01\/15\/in-which-i-remain-precise-\u2013-to-two-decimal-places in anger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

bq. My friend Jenny and I are moving in perfect reciprocity at the moment, so we thought it would be entertaining to plot our opposing curves simultaneously. I am leaving science for a career in publishing, funnily enough at the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}