on transforming a work-related crisis into funtimes and increased productivity!

Most of my readers probably don’t know this (because I didn’t write about it) but my lab project changed oooh, about a month ago. I just wrote a couple of sentences to explain why and then I deleted them. So if you want deets about why my cultured Elispots weren’t working, leave me a comment? Lolz

But anyway my new project involves intracellular cytokine staining so that I can check and see if any of these kiddos have T cells that secrete cytokines (specifically IFNy and IL-10) specifically in response to being stimulated in vitro with malaria peptides. Sound fun? It totes is. It’s also objectively more work (the assay takes much longer, and I have to chase down specific samples) so these past couple of weeks have been, as we would say in this household, “cray cray.”

I’m trying to capture  samples from 20 HIV-exposed kids who were on Bactrim until 4 years of age and 20 who were on it through breastfeeding (standard of care) to try to see if there are any differences in their responses to these malaria antigens. I’m also freezing down parallel tubes of these samples so I can do more complicated flow cytometry assays back in SF to look at more/different cell markers and cytokines. Once again, if you want more info, leave a comment! (bet you $5 I get negative comments. Is that possible?)

And I’m also trying to capture samples from 10 HIV-unexposed kids who fall in the lowest quartile of malaria incidence and 10 who fall in the highest, to see what their responses are like (hopefully they’re different) without the confusing context of chemoprevention.

So I flagged all these charts, and made all these lists, and got everyone in the “okay, we’re doing this, we can draw TCC PBMCs in green top tubes,” etc, and then I ran out of one of my reagents! FAIL

So Ann (our immunology coordinator) and I pulled off some sort of massively heroic (in my opinion) switcheroo and moved all of that week’s appointments to the next week (this week). And it worked (that’s the really amazing part). But for it to be worth it, I had to get my hands on some costimulatory molecules.

Cue a trip to Kampala! What a great excuse to do a little R&R (except we didn’t rest…at all). We stayed with Mara and did all sorts of awesome things, including but not limited to: Korean bibambap & karaoke bday party, Congolese clubbing, made tasty meals, went salsa dancing, shopped, and went boxing. 

 

Devan "proves" he can subtly wink. Haha.

Nothing brings a bunch of people our age together like "mmmbop." Apparently.

Shoot, I forgot about the goth/valentine’s day party. That too. 

So goth.

And then Sunday night I went down to Entebbe with Katie so she could meet up with her family and I could get my hands on my precious reagents! Yes, we resorted to using Katie’s parents as lab supply mules. Yes, we are verrrry thankful (thanks so much!!). 

Buuuuut the weekend wasn't over. I got back into Kampala at about 1am and Mara's like "omg we have to go watch the end of the Africa Cup!" It was a shootout and it was awesome. 

That awful moment where Arul thought Zambia had lost.

But Cote D'Ivore missed too! Then a few shots later ZAMBIA wins! Total craziness.

After a 5:30am mad dash back to Tororo....I am back in business and I have been slammed this week because it’s basically 2 weeks worth of kids in one. But no complaining – it’s awesome to be working again! And I got my first response EVAR and I was so proud it was like I had birthed a baby. Except not really but you know what I mean.

Anyway, JBloome is in Turkey now and I’m all alone in the house until Tuesday when Katie does a drive-by with her fams. It’ll be fun to meet them for more than 5 minutes finally!

Things I have done since being alone (and I feel super productive having done these things):

1)   Made a ridiculously tasty egg sandwich

2)   Discovered I can’t hack into Katie’s computer (weh), so I can’t use the projector

3)   Made coffee ice cubes

4)   Put a bottle of wine in the fridge

5)   Made a mental note to eat those mangos/make smoothie

6)   Discovered more gluten-free baked good recipes I’m gonna make

7)   Failed to watch any of the movies I was planning to watch.  But I will work on that this weekend! 

8) BLOGGED

Also, say a little prayer for Ellie, as she is going to get neutered on Sunday. As Agnes says, “Ellie needs family planning.” Don’t we all.