Confessions of a Mad Scientist

Imagine you sit down to play a high stakes game of poker, where the blind is $100, the double blind $200, and behind everyone’s genial composure leers a set of eyes that wouldn’t miss the slightest twitch or hesitation that could betray your hand. You feel confident because you have a full house, but as you lay it down and get ready to rake in your earnings, some guy with a pair of sevens reaches over and takes them with a smile. Actually, this isn’t quite poker. The rules for what cards are good, what cards are useless, and what combinations can win you the chips are totally different, and you don’t know these rules. Nobody is going to tell the rules. Your goal: to figure them out.

Now, if the cards were too small to be seen by any kind of optical device, you had to pluck the cards from the living, breathing microorganisms that produce them, and you had to subject each hand to high pressure liquid chromatography before you could determine who won, then you would basically have mutagenesis, which is what I’ve been doing in the lab. The peptides I’m working with are composed of smaller units, much like the cards that make up a hand, called amino acids. In order to figure out the importance of each amino acid, I’ve been swapping them for others, getting rid of some, basically trying out different hands. Through this process I’ve been generating mutants. Soon, I will have an army of mutants large enough to take over the world! I mean, I’ll have a library of mutants that will make an impact in a peer-reviewed scientific magazine in the future. It’s exciting guys. We’re not playing for poker chips, but for medical advancements that could improve the quality of life. Anyway, I thought I should give you all a lab update since I haven’t done that for a while. Basically, I’ve now generated a whole bunch of mutants (and I should start expression next week).

Fortunately, lab hasn’t been all work. Last week, we had a Bavarian lunch at lab (sound familiar, Hannah?). I had as many warm pretzels, white sausage, and sweet mustard as I could handle. It was nice to take a break in the middle of the day. Lab has also gotten easier to work in now that it’s cooled down a little. I complained about the lack of air conditioning in a previous post, but now I understand why it’s not around. We’ve only had one week of summer so far. The rest of this weather, I would call spring. I guess AC just isn’t worth it.

I even met up with the retired professor who helped me make a connection with Dr. Marahiel’s lab. I got a nice home-cooked meal and learned all about the history of Marburg. Did you know that Marburg was home to the first ever winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology, as well as I think the youngest woman ever to be canonized? I’ll bet you didn’t. I’ve got to thank Dr. Werner again for helping me out. He and his wife are nice people.

Oh my faithful blog followers, I haven’t had the most exciting week. Honestly, I haven’t had the most exciting week. I’ve kind of been relaxing while I can, hanging out with friends in my dorm, and experimenting with cooking things like real Italian pizza. We definitely figured out how to make a better pizza next time. However, there was one night recently where I was just itching to do something, to take advantage of the country I’m living in, and I can share with you about this adventure. I hopped on a bus without knowing where it was going, and rode it to the end of the line. From there I wandered into the old part of the city, until I found a bar made of stone.

Inside, I said "Bitte ein Bit," because that's what it says on the sign in the picture, and as I drank a beer with three inches of foam I took in the scenery around me. What looked like a half-ton rock with hanging on chains from the ceiling , and although I asked the bartender what it was in German successfully, I was unsuccessful in figuring out what she said. From there, I made my way down to the Lahn River, where I found a huge teepee set up with a bonfire and a bunch of people hanging around it. I was invited inside, and spent the rest of my night again meeting people with my painful German, and soaking in the soft music that permeated the air. The next day there was a bunch of people there with tents and booths trying to get people interested in vegetarianism and political parties. Go figure.