On the first day of SSP, it was so blisteringly hot I believed I would write my blog post about air conditioning. Since then, the weather has become much more agreeable and my blog topic much more involved.
Today can be best described in three words: cleaning, bonding, and MOE. We spent the first half the day in the lab doing a deep cleaning of our work benches and, expectedly, it was rather bittersweet. A combination of gloriously triumphant lab memories like the inhibitor screening trials and more unfortunate ones such as the IC50 curve trials flashed through my thoughts. However, no matter any previous frustrations, I am pleased to say that they now all sit as invaluable, positive memories. My favorite moment today was during our “cleaning” process when, in a sort of looting fashion, several SSPers “borrowed” an old assay plate, a conical tube, or several eppendorf tubes and had each participant sign the object. I am still not certain if this was an excuse to linger together in the lab longer or just to procrastinate bleaching the old E. coli pellets, but, nonetheless, it allowed me to take home a beautiful representation of all the wonderful people I have spent the last 5 weeks with. And then I got to bleach the pellets.
The next hours were spent with MOE modifying our inhibitor design to maximize effectivity. MOE, as always, was a consistently inconsistent experience of guess and check coupled with questionable reasoning and more questionable results; however, I do believe, for the most part, our goal was met and our inhibitor was moe effective :).
On a moe (I will stop now) retrospective note, I have taken a lot from SSP; I learned how to pipette, discovered my favorite starbucks order, interpreted a Michaelis-Menten curve, played volleyball for the first time, ran an assay, re-ran the same failed assay again and again, used in silico protein modeling, ate spicy ramen, understood biochemical properties of enzyme-substrate interactions, sang in a three person group, and, as of yesterday, finished a research paper. And that barely scratches the surface of my newfound wisdom.
This is all to say, the SSP experience is especially timeless and, in the end, I have come to appreciate it far more than the AC. With each day, I have accumulated thousands of small, invaluable memories with our community spanning from glorious “ah-hah” moments, to satisfying lab days, to timeless inside jokes. It really only hit me today, we only have one day left.
Hi! I’m Sachi and I am a rising senior at Dublin Jerome High School in Dublin, Ohio. In my free time I adore tutoring middle school students, singing, eating spicy food, and playing all types of board games.
