Fuck you, infection!

Dreadful day today!

Although it started all nice and mellow with sunny weather, exceptional coffee and some more deubiquitinases papers reading (just let me have the excitement about this one, kay?), the day finished on a substantially bitterer note. Yuck!

I had a meeting with the boss after lunch - the day was actually still in the "yay, positive!" zone at that point. And even after the meeting, we were still firmly in the "yay, positive!" zone. Because the boss is a cool guy and the meeting went well and I left his office with the impression that I am gradually getting where I was supposed to be getting. So, "yay, positive!" all the way, right.

Right?

Hmm…

Around 4 pm the results from Mycoplasma testing of my cell lines came in. And again, they were positive. Which means that MOST of the cell lines I was supposed to work with are infected. With a sneaky, nasty infection that does not significantly affect their growth in my case (meso cell lines pretty much grow like crazy), but definitely DOES affect other aspects of their biology. The very aspects I was supposed to investigate in these very cells. 

YUCK, YUCK, YUCK!

Source

For those who've never heard of Mycoplasma before, let me just introduce you. These devils are tiny bacteria without a cell wall. Why is that piece of information crucial? Because most antibiotics used in cell culture are actually the ones that kill bacteria by interfering with their cell wall. Since Mycoplasma do not have a cell wall, those antibiotics have no effect on them. And to add to the messiness, Mycoplasma are a really widespread "occult" contaminant of cell cultures. Many researchers do not really care about the little fuckers. But since this type of infection can seriously affect a lot of cellular processes, having Mycoplasma in your cell culture can skew a substantial part of the results generated using said cell culture. NOT exactly what I was aiming for.

Well, all in all, it is not as tragic as it sounds, since we have ways to get a new, healthy stock of some cell lines and we can cure the irreplaceable ones. So it's definitely not the end of the world… That would be the rational response to such crappy news. 

My response was a bit less rational.
I was so mad that I was "blessed" with inheriting infected cell lines that I just dragged my bummed ass to my favourite coworker's bench and sat there for half an hour, feeling sorry for myself and angry at no one in particular (Mycoplasma is definitely NOT something people would get on purpose). A whole bunch of people tried to cheer me up or to explain to me that they were not the cheer-you-up kind of people. The poor devils don't know me yet, so I then explained to them that I did not need nor expect any cheering up or anything of the sort. I just need a bit of time and something to distract me. 

SOTD: Richard Cheese - Die, Motherfucker, die (Dope cover). Need I say more?

You think I overreacted? Me too. But you see, it was not the horribly high Mycoplasma titers themselves that bummed me, but the fact that I CAN'T WAIT TO GET TO WORK on my project and this "nursing the cells" gig I'll have to do now means that I'll have to wait a few weeks more for the real action to start. Emphasis on wait. 

The distracting obviously worked, as I now feel better. Luckily, my favourite coworker is a workaholic overachiever and I suspect we'll find ways to keep me busy while we wait for the grass to grow cells to heal.

Jules

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