"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but 'Hmmm...That's funny...'"

Slight excitement in the lab a few weeks ago - I've finally managed to get my Western Blots to a standard AC is happy with! *yay!* Even more importantly I have a result which supports our hypothesis... As you can see in the image below the two test bands (circled in green) are between the negative control (red bands) and positive control (blue bands). The 'negative' control shows my mature receptor with full glycosylation, while the 'positive' control shows the deglycosylated receptor... as my test bands are in the middle it seems to indicate there may be partial deglycosylation of the receptor which is affecting it function!

However, like everything is science, it now has to be repeated ad nauseum to prove that this was not just a fluke result!! But fingers crossed!

In other, not so exciting, news the microscope is still out of action. Turns out, what we though was just a dud bulb is actually a faulty power supply - so we now have to wait for a new one to arrive from the US and have it installed.... *sighs* I'm hoping we'll have it up and running before the end of this month.

On top of that - I've now seriously started making some headway with the review AC and I are writing. The plan is complete - so now here comes the fun part... actually writing it! AC thinks I should be able to write ~1 pg a day/ 5-6 pgs a week.... I think he's delusional... but as it does have to be done by the end of the month.... I should probably attempt to keep on schedule...
(wish me luck!)

On top of this I'm taking a mini-holiday this week as I'm off to the Marist International Festival (or MIF) which I'm extremely looking forward to. As it's unlikely I'll be attending WYD, this is as close to the festivities as I'll be getting.. but oh well - it should still be awesome!! :D