Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.

Kromer's experiments!

I work in a bio lab and I have 5 experiments/projects that I'm working on. I feel like I'm stuck in all of them, so I've identified roadblocks for each of them and will check in here everyday with what actions I've taken to get past those roadblocks.

1)Analysis of expr data
Problem: No idea where to even start with this project :P
Potential solution: Write up a plan and run it by labmates/friends for feedback

2)K. staining
Problem: antibody won't work
Potential solutions: Try another antibody, try different protocols, try a positive control antibody to make sure that the problem is the antibody and not me :)

3)Kl western blot
Problem 1: Not sure r.i. is working correctly
Potential solutions: Try S8 control, try VAD/rest rather than VAS/rest
Problem 2: Not sure how to quantify results
Potential solution: Try quantifying published data and see if I can match their results, then test on my data

4)Southern blot on genomic data
Problem 1: Ladder doesn't show up
Potential solution: Spike in ladder
Problem 2: Can't distinguish specific from non-specific binding
Potential solution: New restriction digest strategy
Problem 3: Can't synthesize a lot of probes
Potential solution: Tweak PCR programs
Problem 4: Not sure I actually have any specific probes to label
Potential solutions: Run out on gel after extraction to check, add a negative control to labelling reaction, talk to MC about her gel extraction protocol
Problem 5: Probe not working
Potential solutions: Try a positive control probe, try a bunch of different probes

5)N.i expts
Problem 1: not sure how to id gc
Potential solutions: Tutorial w/ Dirk in a few weeks, double fluorescent labelling with gc marke
r
Problem 2: not sure treatment is working
Potential solution: S8 staining
Problem 3: histology tech keeps losing my samples
Potential solutions: Use histogel, embed/section myself

OK, that's a lot of problems! But as long as I take action every day on these problems I'm confident I'll get past them eventually. 

kromer 3/22 update

OK, I'm making slow but steady progress on this. I've written up a plan for the first project, and identified some areas that I will need help with. My goal is to present the plan and my progress to the lab next week, so I can get feedback.

((kromer)) with you all the way!!!

Prayers and more prayers!!!! So proud of the work you are doing!!!

♥"Careful the wish we make, wishes are children. Careful the path they take, wishes come true..." From "Children Will Listen," by Stephen Sondheim.♥

kromer 2/28

I've been going embarassingly slow on this, but I've solved problem 5-1 (I did a tutorial with Dirk and I got the double-labelling working; the double labeling gives beautiful pictures so I'll go with that)

I've also made a little progress on 5-3, though not as much as I'd like (I've tried histogel and also have some of my own embedded samples, but I haven't looked at the histogel sections and I haven't tried sectioning the samples I embedded).

For this week, I'm going to work on project 4. I want to solve problems 2,3, and 4 (or at least make as much progress as I can)

 

1/28 solution attempts

For today I'm working on projects (2), (3), and (5)