Life, Science and my Alzheimer's PhD

I'm a PhD student working on Alzheimer's biomarkers, loving life and this is an outlet for my work, thoughts on others work, and funny stuff that happens or I see.

[phdstudentandhuman]

Update. T-minus 5 months

Hi,

It’s been a long time since I made an actual blog post about anything tangible.

I am now in my 3rd year of my phd and I have 5 months to go. 3 of those will be writing my thesis, meaning that I have 8 mere weeks in the lab.

It’s tough.

My phd to date has been relatively easy to be honest. All my work has paid off and I have hit no major research dead ends. However now, it’s seemingly harder and harder to push forwards.

So I have decided to use you all as my personal outlet. No one really knows about my account on here, so it can now stand as those angry letters you write and then throw away, but instead of throwing them away, posting them anomalously to the Internet.

[phdstudentandhuman]

I like train stations, and with that most stations. Don't get me wrong, travel is often a stressful experience in life with the fear and panic that you will miss your associated train/ bus/ plane, but it's nice to take a while, have a look around and acknowledge the variety of people around. Arrival lounges are one of the few places were family reunions/ old friends/ new loves coming together isn't a rare occurrence, but commonplace.

[angelclark]

How To Read A 223-Page Novel In Just 77 Minutes 

Spritz is a company that makes a speed-reading technology which allows you to get through a mass of text, reading every word, in a fraction of the time it would take if you were turning the pages of a book or swiping through a Kindle.

The basis of Spritz concept is that much of the time spend reading is “wasted” on moving your eyes from side to side, from one word to the next. By flashing the words quickly, one after the other, all in the same place, eye movement is reduced almost to zero. All that’s left is the time you take to process the word before the next one appears.

The company is selling licenses for other companies who might want to use the technology in operating systems, applications, wearables, and websites. Obviously, the tiny screen of a smart watch instantly springs to mind.

But the real revelation of Spritz is in trying it yourself.

[oldfilmsflicker]

holy crap

[phdstudentandhuman]

I need this app for research papers... Now!

[phdstudentandhuman]

Cunt and paste

My supervisor is making changes to my paper, and I sent him a more upto date version. 

I asked: have you made changes? If not, please work of this newer version. 

His response: 

thanks - and i had but i can cunt and paste the section..

no more changes though please and i will send this back tomorrow ..

best

Paul

[dis-aj]

(via PHD Comics: A Guide to Academic Relationships)

[nizdawgphd]

Story of my life as a graduate student

[phdstudentandhuman]

This is my life at the moment. I have taken to just naming them by date as the iterations are now up to..... actually 22! That's funny!!

At the end I will be submitting my first author paper to Nature Methods 

[phdstudentandhuman]

HANGOVER FREE BEER

Some ideas are the best due to their simplicity.

Some genius in Australia, (enviably half-way down a nice cool one at the end of the day), thought how great it would be if beer didn't come with a hangover attached to it. 

It is common knowledge that the vast majority of alcoholic beverages are dehydrating, and dehydration is the major cause of the dreaded hangover that is coming in the morning.

Some people try to beat the system by having a few pints of water before bed, to stem the tide of nausea, dizziness and headaches, but there may soon be an alternative. 

The hangover free beer. 

The beer has been isotonically balanced by adding electrolytes (similar to how many sports drinks work). In layman's terms, it no longer dehydrates you as you drink it. 

Removing the fear of a hangover, would then allow the you to drink as much as you would like, and wake up feeling as fresh as a daisy.

In a group of testers, even the hardcore drinkers failed to notice a difference in taste.

There are of course compromises, one being that the beer only carries an alcohol content of 2.3%. Sadly though, it is yet to be sold commercially. 

In a world where your sweet food/drink can contain no sugar, your coffee can contain no caffeine, your cream can contain no fat, and your beer no alcohol, why not a beer that contains no hangover?

[phdstudentandhuman]

300 followers!!! 

Thanks guys!! 

Never expected to anyone to really care about my random life ramblings. 

(Here's Pug Gandalf as a thank you)

[phdstudentandhuman]

Paper

I am in a very gifted positions with regards to paper publishing within my lab. It is coming up to exactly 1 year from when I started (yet still have 2 months until I did lab work due to a ankle operation) and I have a third author paper that has been through all application process and is waiting to print, and now I am in the process of sending off my first, first author paper!!

The amazing thing about my lab and my supervisor is that they have pushed me to write it myself!! 

The methods were previously established and from previous papers/ my first year report. My postdoc wrote the introduction as it is a follow-up from her previous paper. But, the results and discussion are all mine!!!

I recieved email feedback from my supervisor saying it was "a very good start point" with some minor adjustments and after that its "ready to go"!!

I was expecting the whole thing to come back in red!

When the changes are made, it's off to Nature Methods!!

Impact factor 23.565!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope it gets in :-)

[phdstudentandhuman]

Iceland from 34,000 on the way to California. Enjoy

[phdstudentandhuman]

Well here we go...

[phdstudentandhuman]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH I am off to California Wednesday to speak to BioRad about my nonspecific binding buffer. We expect them to try and screw us and this meeting was all going to be very political with choicely chosen words. HOWEVER. MY SUPERVISOR BROKE HIS LEG TODAY!!!! This leaves myself and Jo, the postdoc in his place!!! We will be speaking to a multi billion pound company alone!!!! There are not enough words in the English language for me to full articulate my mix of excitement, anxiety and pure horror, for now AAAAHHHHHHHHHH will have to suffice.

[phdstudentandhuman]

HUMPTY DUMPTY DISPROVEN!! 

I'm sure that all of you know the rhyme of Humpty Dumpty. 

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, 

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. 

All the king's horses, and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again"

There are a lot of different stories associated with the origin of Humpty Dumpty, but there is one that rings true. 

On the morn of his final battle, the Battle of Bosworth, King Richard III, sat on a low stone wall surrounded by his commanders and mapped out the battle plan (which subsequently failed). 

He was then surrounded in battle, falling of his horse (leading to the Shakespeare line of "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse). After this, the hunchbacked Richard III was supposedly hacked into pieces, only corroborated by the lack of remains. 

Back then, when the majority could not read or write, stories were passed down in to from of rhymes or stories, finally culminating in the mordern day Humpty Dumpty. 

We all now know Richard III as "The King under the car park", as his mortal remains have since been found buried and DNA analysed. 

Hence, Humpty Dumpty (King Richard III) did sit on a wall, King Richard did have a great fall. However; All the king's horses and all the king's men, simply couldn't find King Richard.

[phdstudentandhuman]

This is golden rice, a GM crop that could save hundreds of thousands of lives, and protestors have vandalised the test crops. Golden rice is the first GM crop to go through rigorous tests, and first to be trailed in the Philippines, with expected role out in 2014. The field of GM crops angers a lot of people and has become a contentious issue in the past. I fully support the use and development of GM crops. Having a background in genetics, I know that the testing and work to get anything like this, anywhere near role out is very impressive, an that all aspects concerning safely will have been full researched and covered Golden rice has been developed to produce beta carotene, a natural chemical that is found vegetables such as carrots (it gives carrots their orange colour and makes the GM rice gold). I is also produced naturally by rice plants, however in the indelibly leaf. When beta carotene is ingested the body utilises it to produce vitamin A. Vitamin A is used by the cells in the eye to make opsin 'the sight chemical', without vitamin A, eyesight deteriorates. The first symptom is night-blindness, followed by being fully blind. Globally (majority of which are developing countries) 670,000 people die annually for vitamin A deficiency with a further 350,000 going blind. In the Philippines it is estimated that a huge 1.7mn children under 5 suffer with some sort of vitamin A deficiency. In developing countries, rice is the staple, and a cup of golden rice can provide half the daily requirement for vitamin A. However, while in trail fields in Philippines, one of the test field has been attacked, with all the crops up rooted and trampled. This attack was done due to ignorance. The group have since released a statement saying that the crop was "a danger to human health and biodiversity" and "GM crops are not the answer to malnutrition in the Philippines". This is of course rubbish. There are no fears for human health, as the amount of rice needed to be consumed for Vitamin A overdose is ludicrous, and there are no other side effects. In response to biodiversity, there is no other alteration that would decrease biodiversity, (there are some GM crops that produce their own pesticides, which still have to be tested and developed further (as in all aspects of science, if there are any fears, they are tested extensively to eliminate them)), but golden rice would just add to the biodiversity and not reduce from it; offering an alternative for those suffering with vitamin A deficiency. It is a shame that backwards thinking is halting progress, although the development will continue regardless, there are other non-vandalised testing sites, and the future will look brighter in less developed worlds with the availability of golden rice.

[phdstudentandhuman]

GE Healthcare

My supervisor is having a conference call with GE Healthcare to discuss my buffer (among other things) Can I get a hell yeah?

[phdstudentandhuman]

How do you like your burger? 

I'l have mine lab grown please. 

This week there has been a breakthrough in the food technology industry this week. 

For the first time, meat has been grown in a lab and fed to willing members of the community; in the form of food critics. 

The burger was constructed by removing stem cells from a cow in an institute in the Netherlands, these cells were then grown up into strips of muscle, which were then combined to make the burger. 

The field of stem cell research has exploded in recent history, stem cells have the potential to grow new organs and now to revolutionize the food industry. 

What does the use of stem cells mean for the food industry mean however? 

There has been a very optimistic scientist in response to people being dubious about the "lab" environment saying "you could grow it at home" hahahaha.... 

I doubt that would ever be the case, cell culture is not a home DIY process, it would not be easy, it takes time, specific conditions and skill. 

However, it could be effectively up-scaled, and yes, I do believe that in the future there will be factories that not only produce the burger, but grow the meat. 

Growing meat would mean that there is no need for years of cultivating cattle, no excess crop production to feed said cattle, no acres and acres of land needed for the whole process, just some stem cells in a factory and the correct growing conditions. 

And how does the burger taste I hear you ask?

Like meat! 

They made all of the critics eat the burger plain, even without bread salt and pepper and all of them said that it easily passed as a burger. 

It would be interesting to do a blind taste with a range of different quality burgers currently available (as a full burger with bun, salad and toppings) and see how it fared. I'm guessing a lot better than the "beef" found in the tesco value frozen burgers. 

So burgers grown from cells from a lab? I say bring it on.

[phdstudentandhuman]

Buffers, BioRad and espionage.

Its been a long time since my last post, 

Mainly due to the fact of being very busy! 

There have been several developments with my PhD and life all of which are quite exciting. 

My buffers that were sent to BioRad have been returned and talks have continued. 

While in a meeting with my supervisor he said that he was heading over to California to chat with BioRad again, and I cheekily said that I would like to come, and he accepted!! 

So now the whole lab are flying out at the end of August for 5 days to see BioRad, chat about the buffers and more importantly travel around a little! 

As the lab are paying for my flights, they said I can get the return flight whenever I wanted, therefore I decided to extend the 5 day visit for a further week! 

My girlfriend is flying out on day 3 and we are then travelling California together (Alcatraz, baseball game and Labor day in SF, then going to Yosemite Park for 2 days, then across to Monterey and Carmel, whale watching boat trip, then back to SF and home)!!

SO, that is the exciting part of my catch up... 

Now, for the equally exiting, but depressing, espionage section: 

We have not yet patented the buffer system, this is due to several factors; mainly the University dragging their feet and ensuring that there is industry interest (which they already had, but this is not a rant about that) etc.. 

As we have no patent at the moment, we signed a confidential disclosure agreement (CDA) with BioRad, which is an agreement that they can use our buffers to test on their systems (which they did, and proved to be highly effective), but not run analyses to see what it is composed of. 

It seems like they have tried to circumvent this agreement. My supervisor has been in talks with a college in Stanford University, who's PhD students friend has recently got a job with BioRad................

To analyse a non-specific binding buffer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dun

Dun 

Dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. 

Of course this is unfounded, and we are still in talks with BioRad, so we should get something out of the collaboration, but if things do indeed go south, we have contingency plans, mainly in the name of GE Healthcare who have recently expressed interest. 

Oh, and I have successfully passed my first year viva and officially progressing to year 2!!