I’M SORRY

Alright, so I’ve been totally dropping the ball lately regarding the content on this blog…I PROMISE I’ll write things up over the weekend and have all new things ready for you by next week!

I recently got put on a project at work that is intended to find feasible therapies for Wolman disease, a disorder in which your cells can’t metabolize cholesterol properly. I’m hoping to eventually write this up for a publication, so I’ll be somewhat sparing of the details of the project…when I can divulge more, I will!

In other Francis-you’re-kind-of-a-scientist-now news, I started my first induced pluripotent stem cell cultures yesterday, which I’ll be further differentiating into other forms of stem cells such as neural and mesenchymal stem cells. This is my first experience with handling stem cells, so I’m pretty stoked to get the ball rolling on this project. Unfortunately, it means I’ll have to be at work to take care of them every day (including weekends) indefinitely, but at least I’ll be working on a pretty sweet project. Cool stuff! Here’s a picture of the little guys: aren’t they adorable?

Figure 1: Those large clumps of cells are stem cells! The smaller bits floating around are debris/dead cells

Have a fantastic, science filled weekend!

P.S. Did you hear the Philae lander that landed on that comet determined that the water present was different from that found on earth? Full disclosure: the water (also known as heavy water) found on the comet was only different in that it had an extra neutron – the structure was the same. Heavy water is found here on earth  (contrary to many news headlines that I’ve seen lately), but it’s much rarer than regular water!