The past week has been travel crazy.
Travel back to hometown, then to Singapore, and ended my weekend with a night’s stay at Sungai Lembing, Pahang.
Tiring indeed.
Update on the on the Sungai Lembing trip to come.
** I’ve gone crazy over panorama. Took over 20 sets of panorama to be stitched. Anyways, here’s a sample… Click on the image to enlarge.
More photos to come.
Time is short. This short 5 months has been so much fun and I certainly learned so much from each other.
I’ll let the photos do the talking.
It’s great to know these friends who could help each other when in need. They are willing to tell you your faults and let you grow and learn.
Thanks. I’ve learned so much from all of you.
Today, marks the date of my 10th blood donation.
People often think that vegetarians shouldn’t donate blood. Well, I’m a person who eats lots of chocolates. So who says that my iron is insufficient?
By the way, those meat eaters, beware of iron overload. The only way you can prevent iron overload due to red meat is by donating blood, especially for males.
So for your own health, as well as to save other’s life, donate a pint of blood today!
I saw a girl lying in pain in the hospital.
I saw her mom crying in pain beside the bed.
I saw the girl ignoring her mom, throwing a tantrum.
I saw the mom begging her to listen, while the doctors treated her.
I saw the pain of a parent loving her daughter so desperately.
I saw the ignorance of the daughter of the mother’s love.
It got me mad.
Mad of why a child so selfish.
Mad of why a mother so selfless.
Mad of the ungrateful daughter.
Still, life goes on and the daughter will learn.
Someday, that she will lose a caring mother.
Someday, she will suffer in regrets and remorse.
May she meet someone, who could tell her that she has the greatest mother on earth.
And may she learn from them, the importance of filial piety.
Sometimes, you just have to trust and have faith.
Sometimes, you just have to believe in thinking positive.
Sometimes, you just need to be a bit more helpful.
Sometimes, you just need to be yourself, and be patient.
And one day, you’ll be surprised!
Like me, today!
Having cold sweats these few days… all stressed out… can’t even concentrate on what I like to do most…
I wanted to sleep, but yet, my mind is filled with so much stress…
I don’t think it’s the work, but the people involved…
What an insightful meet… Learnt so much about my work and also how I should be handling things.
Thank you for the advice, and I look forward to learning more things from you.
Also, all the best to you in your teaching at Mahsa.
Thanks to my many 慈青 friends, 學長姐, and 師姑師伯 for the advice and and support too.
They gave me lots and lots of love and encouragement to go through with what I’m facing at the moment. I’ll make sure that everyone of you will be well credited in my thesis writing… haha.
I’ve been dealing with tetracycline for a while, and here’s a quick overview of what I’ve done.
Basically, I just check for the presence of tet(A) and tet(B) genes, which are involved in tetracycline antibiotics resistance.
Today, while testing out all the Expasy, RasMol, SwissProt etc, I found the structure to the protein encoded by the tet(A) gene.
The protein actually pumps in one hydrogen ion into the bacteria, and pumps out one tetracycline antibiotic molecule out into the environment (called the H+/Tetracycline antiporter). You can see the channel as circled lightly in red in the above photo. (Cross Section of the pump)
The image below shows the longitudinal section of the pump. You can see that the pump consist of many alpha-helix secondary protein structure.
Anyways, just to share with everyone about this.
Tomorrow is the day where I have to sit for a test called Oncology. And the section tested would involve all the cancer pathways and the dysregulation of all these pathways lead to cancer formation (carcinogenesis).
So here’s an overview of the cancer pathways:
1. The AKT/PKB Pathway
This pathway is involved in the cell proliferation and growth.
2. Cyclins and Cell Cycle Regulation
This pathway is a continuation of previous pathway. This pathway regulates DNA replication and cell proliferation.
4. The Famous p53 Pathway – One of the most important cell guardian
This pathway makes sure that everything is right. Not too much of proliferation, induce repair mechanisms and apoptosis in cases of DNA damage. It basically protects a cell from going crazy. Mutation in gene expressing this p53 protein eventually leads to cancer formation, no doubt.
4. Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) Pathway
Part of the pathways was learnt, and again, they all regulate cell proliferation and growth.
5. (Summary of) Molecular Mechanisms of Cancer Pathway
I think this is the most complex diagram ever constructed. This is how complex cancer is.
6. (Another Summary of) Pathways in Human Cancer
This is exactly what I’m studying at this moment. This PDF is available at http://www.cellsignal.com/about/marketing/pdfs/cancer_poster.pdf
As you can see, the pathways are driving everyone crazy, and these are all normal cell processes. Without them, we cannot survive. Yet, dysregulation of these pathways lead to cancer formation. Why dysregulation occurs? Too many factors already, which include chemical and physical exposures, cellular processes etc. Most frequently, food is one of the main causes of cancer. So, YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.
By the way, too much of stress do induce cancer formation… and I’m a bit stressed out… Hope that I don’t get cancer because of this… CHOY!!!
Also, if you like the other posters, do not hesitate to download them from http://www.abcam.com/index.html?pageconfig=resource&rid=11069&pid=10628. Credit goes to them for creating such fantastic posters that makes everyone crazy!!!
I’ve been too busy … where got time to even consider abandon blog… just to inform you that I’m too busy, need some time away from blogging also so difficult already.
Anyways, next week is going to be worse. The only thing I can do now is…
I will try my very best to do whatever I can… By the way, would you like to see how busy is my schedule?
This Week:
Study Oncology, Virology Lab Test, Medical Genomics
Prepare for IPC Presentation.
Summarise Oncology Journal.
Complete virology assignment.
Prepare FYP presentation slides, confirm thesis printing price.
Head over to Putrajaya to complete my studies application.Next week:
Monday: Might head over to Taiwan Embassy
Tuesday: MG Quiz 2
Wed: Viro Lab Test, IPC presentation
Thur: Pharmaco lab report, Onco journal summary submission
Fri: Onco test 2, Viro assign presentation, collection of thesis for printing.
A lot more haven’t included yet… the small small details are the time consuming ones…
All the best to everyone!
One of Dr. Chew’s student, Pue Meng Chai, came up with this crazy idea and I personally find it so interesting. I just couldn’t stop laughing…
Just to share with everyone… This is what happens when the students are bored in UTAR. Once again, complements to Pue Meng Chai for his creative art.
Now that I’ve finished my lab work in Kampar… I am starting to miss the lab life here already…
I’m so going to miss these things…
The troublesome Gilson Micropipettes…
...where I have to manually pull out the pipette tips instead of pressing the ejector.
The tedious agarose gel preparation…
...where I have to boil and boil and boil before I can cast the gel… and risk getting my migrating gel curved just because my gel is too thick or thin or not well hardened.
The place where we put our tools and run our prepared gel…
LB Broth and Agar…
...where I have to prepare the cultures in streak plates and broth before I can proceed with DNA extraction…
...and the tools I use to culture them…
...and the horror of changing the Campingaz canisters when the gas has finished… as if the gas tank would explode or something.
The Microcentrifuge machine…
...quiet hum of the spinning samples… telling me that I’ll be able to separate the pellet and supernatant soon.
The tube trays…
...where I can hold all the microcentrifuge tubes prior to any lab work…
The cute little red PCR machine…
...where I have spent lots of hours trying to figure out why contaminations were still there even after countless times of changing the reagents.
The distilled water bottle and tap…
...to clean up the glasswares after using them.
and last but not least…
...the God in my lab…
...haha!!!
I’m sure others would miss their lab hours too… the contaminations, the worries, the troubles, the arguments, the toleration, the helps, the laughter…
They are part of growing up in the lab.
The ironic story of (some) science students…
1. Consume Mamee frequently when mothers say that junk food is bad for you…
2. Cut electrophoresis gel with the use of UV light, by looking straight at the UV with naked eyes…
3. Wear short pants when in the labs…
4. Eat Choki-Choki (chocolate strip) like nobody’s business – up to 10 a day…
5. Overdosed consumption of paracetamol (Panadol®).
6. Play poker cards in the lab while waiting for the lab results…
7. Sleep on the work bench used for bacteria culture etc.
8. Eat and drink in the lab when students are prohibited from eating in the lab.
9. Instead of preparing / pipetting harmful chemicals in the fume hood, they do it in the open air.
10. Cam-whore in the lab like no body’s business.
If you’re one of them… do be very aware of all these mistakes, try to *ahem* reduce them as much as possible. Also, if you’ve more to add, you’re welcome to send your suggestions to me =P
By the way, to the Setapak friends… I’ve always wanted to show you guys this…
CABINET FULL OF PIPETTE TIPS FOR OUR DISPOSALS!!!! WAHLAO…!!!
P/S: Please don’t be jealous ar… =P
The five of us are very fortunate to be in Kampar to do our Final Year Project (FYP).
Really pity those who have to steal and beg and queue for the equipments in Setapak.
We have our very own set of micropipettes and the autoclave machine is basically ours…
So… I must admit… we are very very fortunate… so be thankful… haha
Anyways, since our work are mostly Molecular work… this involves lots of PCR and gel… which also means, lots of waiting time…
A few days ago, our PCR run was not successful, leading to the presence of amplicons in negative control of the PCR… haiseh… pity Wai Yew, has to run and run and run, but still got problem…
Finally, we did total cleaning, sterilization, and retesting of our reagents… and the cause? contaminated gene primers… Thank god Wai Yew didn’t explode that time… almost…
Anyways, since today we have not much things to do other than waiting for the retesting of stock primers, we have lots of time to do other things… such as… SINGING…
Wai Yew, Xavier and I were singing out loud in the labs like no body’s business…
And here’s Wai Yew singing while cleaning the glasswares…
Haha… we really enjoyed ourselves there…
At night, we had dinner with our seniors cum Master students and the lovely Dr. Chew and Dr. Choo… Thanks for the treat. I really enjoyed our night…
At the same time, we celebrated Sue Bee’s birthday… She’s my ‘dai kar che’ (Big Sister)… haha… she’s in charge of my project…
Her birth date is on Oct 17, so… early Happy Birthday oh… !!! hehe
Tomorrow night, I’ll be heading to Singapore… till then… see everyone back on Tuesday!
Today, I discovered the meaning of ‘Research’…
‘Re-’ means that you have to do it again and again…
‘-Search’ means that you have to look and do and hunt for answers and solutions, no matter what…
So what happened?
I’m doing PCR and few days ago, my PCR went well, with the negative control showing no bands. Which is good!
But today… both my PCR run, gave some unsatisfying results, and all the negative controls show bands.
Contamination? perhaps…
I really feel the frustration of not getting the expected results… and I really don’t feel like wasting more resources… Really pity my lab mate… he has been getting bad results for over a week already…
Tomorrow, I will autoclave everything… clean everything… change some of the things I’ve been using all the while… and when I’m satisfied, I will run 2 negative controls… hopefully, none of my current reagents are contaminated…
Wish me luck~!
P/S: To all other friends who are doing your research as well… hopefully this can encourage you. :)
DON’T GIVE UP!!!
Well, quite predictable…
Wake up at about 7am, get ready to UTAR.
Reach UTAR at 8.30am, start working on my project, till 5.30 pm… sometimes later.
Have dinner, clean up, and by then, it’s already 8 pm.
watch some Daai Drama, some medical news and updates, browse a bit of the internet.
Summarize my day’s work.
Sleep at about 11 pm.
Next day, same thing all over again… All of a sudden, I feel like I’m a PCR machine… haha
By the way, I’m heading back to KL tomorrow. Got some late Tanglung Festival celebration on Saturday… I can’t wait!!!
P/S: Still no photos la… don’t know when only I’ll be free to take photos… I haven’t even finished reading my journals yet…
Welcome to the world of microbes…
The one in yellow spots are known as Staphylococcus aureus… it’s golden yellow in colour when it is cultured in Mannitol Salt Agar (MSA)…
That is the very bacteria which gained resistance in the first place, better known as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
This sample came from a nasal swab… that’s how it looks like when you culture the swab from your upper respiratory tract…
Next… let’s take a look at what is growing on your skin…
See…. the white spots and some green fungi…
I personally don’t think that the fungi is due to contaminations. So, if you can see, there are lots of microbes growing on your skin…
The white spot is better known as Staphylococcus epidermidis, which is another opportunistic bacteria (causes illnesses when you are immunocompromised)…
CONCLUSION: Keep yourself clean… Wash your hands often. Make sure you don’t sneeze on other people, and don’t wipe your nose with your hands….
Till then. Happy eating!!!
Just because some students were peeking around for answers…
Just because some students snatch away other friends’/foes’ quiz paper and copy them…
Just because we weren’t prepared for our quiz…
Just because of that… she took the decision to AWARD everyone a
‘ZERO’
mark for quiz 1… two marks out of 100 marks in the finals.
… Unbelievable… And still say that ‘it is a democratic world, you can comment on this matter’ when the decision has already been made…
I don’t know whether I should applaud this idea or what…
The Good… to punish those who copied during the quiz…
The Bad… to punish those who worked hard for the quiz…
No point for me to sob towards that 2 marks now….
