I can't help but laugh sometimes

More protein problems. Actually the proteins are doing what they are supposed to, we are the ones with the problem. Our post-doc did a Western blot of her protein purification process and found a protein that was enriched in a couple of the elution fractions just like she saw on her silver stained gel. That is good except the protein band appeared to be about twice as large as it should have been. We think that that is probably because this protein likes to self-dimerize. However, we don't want the protein to be dimerized. I had her do a couple of things that would solve the problem and after running the blot again, she excitedly showed me the film (Western blot results are recorded either digitally or by film) that showed protein bands much lower on the blot. After taking one look, I saw from the shape of the bands that she had the film upside down. She assured me that she didn't, showing me where she had creased the film to ensure proper orientation just like I had taught her. Sure enough, her mark was in the correct place but she had placed the blot upside down in the film cassette. I managed to only grin a little bit while explaining the problem. I need to sit down with her and help her design the next couple of experiments to improve our yield and purity as well as our dimerization problem. These next few experiments are going to be a bit more involved but should yield good results. Of course now that I have said that, I have cursed the experiment. We'll see.