Scientific Triumphs and Tribulations

The turn of the month and Labor Day weekend brings ~250,000 students back to Boston regional universities for the fall semester. This weekend the streets are flooded with U Hauls and furniture; it’s an excellent time to get out-of-town; unfortunately I am not.

With the new start, it occurred to me last night that it might be helpful to the general public to provide some transparency into what the daily life of a scientist is. With such, I intend on providing a daily synopsis of my activities at the end of each work day. Hopefully, it will reflect the daily trials and tribulations that are manifested through scientific pursuits.

As background, I am currently employed as an analytical chemist supporting several therapeutic projects, each intended on entering Phase I clinical trials. Given such, I develop analytical assay, qualify/validate them, and subsequently test samples in order to quantify and characterize raw material, in-house manipulations, and final products. I quantify samples, assigning numbers to unseen agents. Such entails material processing and a series of dilutions on a daily basis.

Given my work, and IP considerations, I can not disclose many details of what I do, but can provide a general outline. Hence, I am currently planning on summarizing my activities in the following fashion:

Assay/Activity: [ELISA, Electrophoresis, etc.]

Description: [Raw Material, Final Product, Clinical Samples, etc.]

Samples/Dilutions: [#/#]

Outcome: [Nominal, +/- Expectations, Failure]

Status: [Development continues, Completed, etc.]

That may be a gross overview, but I hope that it can provide some insight into the daily struggle undertaken in the name of science. At the end of each week, I intend on summarizing assay, sample, and dilution metrics to date; standard curve dilutions will be included in the dilution metric.

Metousiosis