uuuugh - work

Ah, work. I don't know what I'd do without some type of work, but there are many a moment when I would rather be in a different type of work than the current type.

The new "developments," if you would like to call them that, at work are as follows:

• It appears that the protein blots I've been using to try to detect protein in the gut of mice were not working at their most sensitive level due to ancient reagents. This is semi-good news in that it is possible that all the negative data I've gotten since July is actually positive data if the experiments were to be performed with new reagents. The bad news is I need to do all those experiments with the new reagents. Not too terrible, but annoying. I sure hope that this gives me something useful!
• The mice I've been immunizing for the past couple months have absolutely no immune response. The leading theory on why not is that the adjuvant that we are using is crappy. I have my doubts, but since when does my opinion count? I don't have a very good alternative hypothesis, either.
• Another theory about why we don't get good immune respones to our vaccine is that our delivery vector contains so many of its own proteins that the vaccine protein that it is delivering is in too small a quantity for the body to see enough of to make a decent immune response. Thus, I will soon be starting a new set of vaccinations in which I compare the response to the protein itself versus the protein with the vector. I've often wondered what would happen if we immunize with just the protein, but it's never been done in our lab. I'm happy to finally be able to do it.
• Currently I am testing mice to see what happens to the natural bacteria in their gut when we feed them antibiotic and then our vaccine vector, which is also a bacterium. I think that nothing will happen - that the vector won't colonize and start showing up in the feces, but...we'll just have to wait and see. I hope it does what I expect, otherwise we've got a couple extra issues on our hands with the whole vaccine thing.

So, if you were interested in an update on my work, there you have it. And update on my Sims: I haven't visited them much recently. Too busy or too knitting. Adam did manage to head off to college, though, and he is now a sophomore majoring in something like mathematics, I think, and keeping up an A+ average. Go him! He blew all his scholarship money on clothing, which was sort of stupid and could have gone instead to rent for non-dorm housing. Oh well.

Back on the homefront, Jimmy and all the gals are trying to make and keep friends so Jimmy can get a promotion at work. When he and Mackenzie got married, they had 17 family friends. Now, between the six family members in the house, they have a combined total of 8 friends - and one of them is Adam!! That shows you what happens when couples have babies...good-bye friends!