We stopped by Cafe Fresco on the way home to get coffee + egg sandwiches. One of my favorite things about the weekend is egg sandwiches. I never eat them during the week but there is almost nothing better than 2 eggs scrambled on a toasty, doughy bagel coated in salt and garlic, topped with melty american cheese and ketchup. So delicious. I then had to go in to work to finish my experiment from the week. To use the FACS machine (Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorter) I have to sign up for time earlier in the week. It's usually booked through each day during the work week and I do not like to be rushed. I hate thinking that people are in front or behind me and feeling like I have to rush around and don't have time to adjust things. For that reason, I usually do FACS on the weekend when it's more available. I should totally tell you guys what FACS is - it's kind of the most important tool immunologists have...besides mice.
A FACS is a multi-million dollar machine made by a company called BD. Maybe other companies make them, but everybody uses BD brand ones. There are 2 FACS machines on our floor and they're shared between like 8 labs, which is why they're so crowded all the time. They weren't available about 20 years ago and they've changed science - completely. Some genius guy developed the first FACS as part of his PhD. Seriously? Genius. So say you have a cell. Remember I told you about them before? You're made out of them. Well there are different things that stick to the outsides of them. Those things that stick to the outsides of them are sometimes proteins and lipids (fats) and sugars, and mixtures of sugars and proteins (glyco-proteins). Those things help the cell function the way it needs to. Immune cells have different things stuck to them than neurons or intestinal cells, or heart cells. Well in immunology, we often want to know 1. What's on the outside of a cell and 2. How much of said thing is on the outside of the cell.
^That's what a FACS looks like. It's about 4 feet long and sits on a big table and you put your sample in on the right hand side where that glass tube is. The blue part is where all the lasers are. It's connected to all kinds of lubricants and other containers of buffering fluids that keep it "wet." You constantly freak out that you will break the expensive thing that everyone relies on. Another reason why you do not like to be rushed.
To figure that out, we use antibodies that are "conjugated" (connected to) a fluorescent molecule. That means that when you shine a laser of a certain wavelength onto the fluorophore, it emits at another wavelength that travels through a tube and is read by a detector. Ok, we'll try that again in English instead of Physics. You know that paint that glows in the dark? It's inside those stars that you put on your ceiling when you were a kid (or that you gave to your kids to put on their ceilings). Those things also glow when you shine UV (ultraviolet) light on them. You know why? Because they're full of molecules that absorb UV light (which is a component in day light - hence why you get sunburned), and emit light in a yellow-ey greenish hue.
Ok, so an antibody. It "recognizes" things that cause an immune reaction. When you get infected with....say...Rhinovirus (aka the virus that causes the Common Cold), you have antibodies that get made that recognize Rhinovirus and eliminate it. Antibodies are proteins. They're shaped like the letter "Y." You make them, your dogs make them, rabbits make them, mice make them. They circulate in your blood looking for pathogens. They're important for your body to fight off pathogens. They're extremely specific. So an immunologist once thought. "Hmm...maybe we should inject proteins into rabbits and collect their antibodies. That way we could stick some fluorescent molecule on that antibody then expose those it to cells that we think will have the protein we originally injected. If the antibody sticks, that means that the cell has the protein. We can tell whether it has it by shining a fluorescent light on it and seeing if it glows.
Well now we have TONS of different fluorescent molecules that get "excited" or emit light at different wavelengths and by different lasers. We expose cells to those antibodies, see both 1. what sticks and 2. how much sticks by putting it into the FACS machine. The FACS machine shoots tons of different lasers at it (like between 2 and 12 depending on how baller (expensive) your FACS machine is). If you were wondering...we have 2 baller FACS machines....b/c we're Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center....and we're important. Then the detector detects the colors that shine in response to those lasers. Some nerdy computer programming guy or gal wrote a program to interpret what the detector sees and that's what shows up on your computer screen. It's very nice/cool.
So...that's what I did on Saturday.
Then I went to a party at my friend Karen's house. She just moved in with her boyfriend to an apartment in Brooklyn near Prospect Park. I ate a TON of gorgonzola cheese and toffee and they had some kind of DELICIOUS punch that was crushed raspberries, pomegranate seeds, simple syrup, mint, lemon & lime juice/zest, vodka, and champagne. It was seriously SO GOOD. I need to learn the ratios. We got home at around 2 - enough time to eat pizza at some shop full of drunken, inappropriate Saint Patty's people. I was not really drunk because mainly I ate so much cheese. Parties are still super fun but no longer cool to get wasted - because now you're just a sad drunk - no longer funny. That time has come and gone (at least with work friends ;)
Anyway. I have more to tell you but I've bored you enough for one night.
Carpe diem,
J
No comments:
Post a Comment