laboratory problemos

We got back to Tororo on Monday after spending literally all day Sunday flying, crashing in Kampala overnight, and taking a 5 1/2 hour bus ride back to Tororo (...it usually takes 4 hours). When we got back, the incubator was broken! Oh nos! This is problematic, since pretty much everything immunology does requires an incubator. Anyway, we were able to hook up the CO2 to the other incubator, but when we did that we had trouble getting air out of the sample port to check the C02 level. Finally, frustrated, we just shoved a wire through the port, and...mouse poop came out?? WTF!? It could have been a rust ball, I guess, except that when we opened the top of the incubator we found other mouse poops. Gross. Anyway 1 of 2 incubators is now working and we'll be trying to get the other one serviced soon....somehow.

Incubator troubleshooting w Katie and Wamala.

A few other pictures of the lab.

Our flow cytometer! Also not really working =(.

The immunology team! Being silly and wearing eye/face protection. Ijay and Pras are based in SF but were here for the conference two weeks ago and this is the picture we took to put at the end of a presentation.

More work stories to come. I just started my first cultured Elispot yesterday, so we'll see how this goes...