The "Lab"

Midnight when heading "home" from "lab" (the clinic).

Current conditions: Con3.  Temp = -8°F (-31°F with wind chill).  Mostly cloudy. 
Population = 318


About one year ago, I emailed the National Science Foundation (NSF) with an idea about a research project to do while I was here in Antarctica.  It was a GREAT idea.  I ran it by a number of smart people.  They also thought it was a GREAT idea.  And what made it even better than "GREAT" was that it was easy and incredibly cheap (just some sample collection. I thought I could write a grant for the lab work done when I got home).  

The NSF never emailed me back.    I tried again, a month or two later, expanding to three or four NSF contacts.  No answer.    I was a bit surprised.  As I said, it was a GREAT idea.  So a few months later, I called.  I left a message.  No answer.  I tried again a month or so later.  I finally received a call back.  The NSF person said, "I'm calling just to tell you that I can't talk to you.  You're a contractor".  Then, she hung up.

Subsequently, I got chewed out by our boss at the University of Texas.  I had gone rogue calling the NSF.  It didn't matter if I had a GREAT idea.  I couldn't do it.   I was a contractor and was hired to practice medicine.  Period.

But my boss was vaguely sympathetic and tried to help.  Because the "McMurdo crud" (viral infection that runs rampant through the base when new people arrive) is so problematic here, my boss got the NSF to agree for me to do rapid sequencing to see if we could "nip the crud in the bud".  I happen to work closely with a great virome person at UCSF and he was interested in seeing if the MinION sequencer (see below) could work down here in the hands of a rank-amateur lab person.  He's shown he could do sequencing in central Africa so maybe Antarctica would also be a go.  So that's what we decided to do sequence viruses from clinical specimens, usually nasopharyngeal swabs.

But unlike my GREAT idea, this is a RIDICULOUS idea.  First of all, we have rapid tests for most causes of the crud.  If we want to know what it is, we could do any of the many rapid PCR assays for viral respiratory or GI infections that are commercially available.  This is not Africa where we might want to distinguish Rift Valley Fever from Ebola from malaria.  Second, this "rapid" test, takes TWO FULL DAYS.  The experiment must have 1000 steps to it.  It is NOT an assay for easy, rapid diagnostics.  Yes, the equipment is adorable, but cute is not worth wasting my entire Sunday.  Also, with all the many, many eppendorf tubes and pipette tips required, I've basically used up my plastic allowance (if there were such a thing) for a decade. 

PCR machine, minION sequencer, and associated minIT computer
Nevertheless, this is how I spent my weekend, and why I carried a boxes full of pipette tips to Antarctica.  But I do have cDNA, despite the lack of appropriate lab space (no hood) and tiny nasal samples.  Woohoo.  

So now I'm applying for a grant for my GREAT idea.  It will have to wait a few years to get funding and NSF approval. By then, it probably won't be so GREAT.  Or maybe I'll be too old.  Or maybe it was really just an okay idea to begin with.

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