Looong week!

The first week of school usually just means that there are more people walking the halls for me. However, the first week of school this year coincided with five new people starting in the lab. We have a new Korean research fellow who will be with us for a year, a surgical resident doing a two year research rotation, two medical students (only 4 weeks each) and an undergrad who is doing a research project for an Integrative Physiology class. Oh, and I also hired another undergrad for a workstudy position in the lab. All of them are very nice and quite intelligent but have very limited experience in the lab. I have literally had people lined up to ask me questions. I am tired and would like a few minutes to do my own work. It doesn't look like that will be happening any time soon but it never hurts to dream.

One of the good thing about having new people in the lab is that we can start new projects. Perhaps I am just a glutton for punishment but I really enjoy the excitement of a new project even though it means more work (which is a lot better than having no work). I like being able to explore new ideas with no real idea what the data are going to show.

As new projects start, old ones end. Today was the last day of treatment for my tumor-implanted mice. I will be doing post-treatment MRIs next week and then sacrificing the animals and removing the tumors for sectioning and immunolabeling. I'll post pictures as they become available.