In the lab

I've been asked about my work in the lab, so here's some photo's from one of my really really long experiment days. How long? The buses stopped running when I left the lab and I had to walk home.

Anyway, here's a shot of good old Mr Akta, I'm purifying phage surface coat protein to test for my ability to modify it.

After the purification, then there's concentration and chemical modification! Now I'm upstairs on my messy bench. You can see more columns, lots of collection tubes. I am testing phage modification because we would like to change our protocol. Rather than working with the entire phage I am just working with one coat protein.

And during one of my hour incubations I grab some my dinner in the lab kitchen. An upgrade from Vancouver but not as pretty. However, we still have a view of the mountains and the lake unlike the parking lot at UBC.

Anyway, I stopped taking photos because it was more of the same thing and I was getting grumpy and tired. I got my protein in the freezer and then headed home but I had to walk. Stupid buses in Lausanne stop at midnight. Here's a shot as I walk down the highway looking back towards EPFL. I haven't walked home before, but I've had a few close calls.

And finally, what's missing in this picture? The oven. Someone asked me if I tried to start a fire in this oven. Hell, I didn't just try, I was successful. I had put plastic tips in the oven to dry and when we opened it later there was only a large candle sized flame inside the oven but a whole lot of stinky smoke from the melted plastic. The scariest thing was that the smoke detectors didn't go off. Anyway, apparently the ovens here have bad thermostats because they are so old and this one was removed.