Category: Research

The lost 7/7/07 Post

William 9 Comments

I really meant to make a post on 7/7/07. I was going to tell everyone how it had been such a lucky week for the Cody family. For those who missed it, the 2nd was my mother’s last chemo treatment. On the 6th I found out that I passed my qualifying exam at Colorado. For those that don’t know, I transfered from Tulane to Colorado (it’s just easier now that the lab is here). Passing their exam was a condition of the transfer and I was a little nervous about it, considering that I hadn’t taken a course from any of the professors giving it. I had been waiting for about 20 days to hear back from the university. (If you don’t know what the qualifying exam is, you can think of it like boards for a physician or the bar for lawyers).

Kyllan and I saw “knocked up,” “Oceans’ 13” and “Transformers” in the theaters and watched “Music and Lyrics” and “Stomp the Yard” on DVD while was in town. “Knocked up” was hilarious. It’s been a long time since I laughed that hard in a theater. I thought “Oceans’ 13” was just barely just okay, but Kyllan liked it. “Transformers” was a little campy, but I still found it very entertaining. “Music & Lyrics” was formulaic, but not necessarily predictable. For a chic flick, it was pretty good. “Stomp the Yard” was horrible. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give it a 0.5 (p<.001). I would tell you why it is so bad, but it is not worth my time to even type it out. It's back to work this week. I've been having some success in the lab recently. With the new found motivation that has come with knowing the exam is behind me, hopefully I will experience some more. Below is the mandatory photo from our trip. It is a picture of the board game "Scene It," which I beat Kyllan at three times in a row. More photos of the trip are on my flickr, including a couple of my nephew Drew, who told his Aunt KyKy that the two of them had brown thumbs and I had yellow… He later asked me if I was white..

I can't be beaten

ASM Wrap-up

William 3 Comments

So, I am back from ASM. If you don’t know, ASM stands for the “American Society for Microbiology.” What I am referring to is the ASM general meeting. Last year I had a great time. This year, it was just okay. Seminars, symposiums, keynote speakers, posters… all the same things went on, but they just weren’t as enlightening as last year. I also think think the organization wasn’t so great this year. The Pseudomonas talks were scheduled at the same time as the majority of the Pseudomonas posters. Those were the two things I was looking forward to the most, but I didn’t have enough time for them both. Also, me and the PI got stuck with a Friday morning poster presentation date. Friday is the last day of the conference and is always poorly attended. Last year, we held court and had a lot of interesting discussions about our posters. This year, we spoke briefly to the people that trickled by. Overall it was still worth going. It’s always interesting to see what other people are working on. As a student, it is always interesting to see what things are completely over my head. Next year it is in Boston. (Sorry, no pictures.)

ASM 2007

William 5 Comments

I am currently in Toronto for the American Society for Microbiology General Meeting. If you noticed the lack of posting or my comments the past few days, it because I was gathering data up until the last minute for my presentation. Everything came out pretty well and I am excited about the meeting. I doubt that any of you would actually get all that excited about anything going on here, so I will wait until I return to give a recap. I’ll be pretty busy with events at the conference, so I am afraid there won’t be to many pictures.

Denver- The Lab

William 6 Comments

I meant to post earlier about the lab. How do I like it? I love it. I have no idea where the state of Colorado came up with the money for this place. It is beautiful. Core facilities, prep rooms, on-site freezer programs and I’ve never seen seen administration and facilities run so efficiently. I spare you the particulars. Let’s just say I once dreamed of the perfect place to do research, and it wasn’t this nice. Below are a couple of pictures of the unboxing two weeks ago. You would have to go a few pages back to find them in my flickr account. This is of one of our two bays. And yes, you can see snow capped mountains from my PI’s office. I will have to take some better pictures of the view sometime this week.

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Day 1 Day 2

Snuck up

William 3 Comments

Sorry for the lack of post recently. Kyllan has been really busy at work and I had a couple of rough days at the lab… Speaking of the lab, this move thing kind of snuck up on us. We weren’t planning to stop working this early, but the moving company called yesterday and told us they would be coming Friday to pack up everything. We spent all day breaking down equipment and separating out what was staying and what was going, only to receive a call at about 5:30 that they weren’t going to make it. Oh well. I should be getting out of here the 31st. I will be making a stop in Dallas to see Kyllan and then continuing on to Denver where I will move into an apartment I have never seen. With all that has been going on, I never made it up to look at apartments. My PI has seen it. He had planned to move to the same complex if he and his wife hadn’t closed on a house. It’s nicer and cheaper than were I am staying now, so I am happy. I’ll have to stop by Xavier’s bookstore before I leave and get some paraphernalia.

Lab Space

William 2 Comments

My parents had a good trip this weekend. This very well may be the thier last trip to New Orleans until my defense and/or graduation. Who knows when that may be?… They arrived Friday and flew out Sunday, so it was a quick trip. We managed to fit in a tour of the 9th ward and lake view. (These are the same areas on my “Post Katrina” DVD. Sadly, little has changed since I shot the footage 7 months ago.). We stopped by Jaques-Imo’s Friday night for dinner, one of Kyllan’s favorites.

Here are a few photos of the lab space in Denver, shot by the PI’s wife on thier last visit. (I have not been up yet.) There are a couple more on my flickr account. The first is our building, the second is what the lab bays look like.

Move Date, Dallas & Vendors

William 2 Comments

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the move to Colorado from friends and family the past few days. The word is that we will move out of the lab on November 1st. Our start date in Colorado will be November 15th. I will keep everyone update as I continue to get information. My PI will be out of town for the next week, so information will be sparse. I will try to get some pictures he took of the new lab space on his last trip when he gets back.

I will be in Dallas this weekend. Kyllan and I are going to meet with a couple of photographers while I am in town. Kyllan will also give me a tour of the Hilton, which is where our reception will be held. (Please send all complaints on lack of wedding and house updates to Kyllan.)

Good bye New Orleans

William 6 Comments

I’ve have known that this deal was in the works for several months, but it now appears to be coming to fruition. At the end of the year the lab will be moving to the University of Colorado. A few months ago, one of the preeminent Pseudomonas researchers in the country asked my PI to apply for a position opening. My PI once described this scientist as being his personal hero in the field, so of course he obliged. None of us, including my PI, thought that they would make him an offer, being that they already had one of the top minds in the field in their department. No doubt they would like him, but surely they would decide to go a different direction. First interview, second interview, third interview…What do you mean Tulane did not counter?… Now they counter?… Wait, they call that a counter? Bam. William is now collecting card board boxes to pack his things. I can’t complain. Colorado made him a really good offer and the facilities are top-notch (NMR, Mass Spec. BioCore, Spinning disc confocal microscopes, EM… the list goes on, and that is just in our building.) I have been instructed not to say anything negative about the current state of our facilities at Tulane… so I will just say that I am positive my PI would have taken this offer even before the hurricane.

How does this affect William? I am taking the qualifiers this summer (delayed due to the transfer from Cornell and hurricane Katrina) and that means that I will get my PhD from Tulane regardless of the move. The move also means a lot of down time. Tack on at least three months to that mysterious date known as graduation (Actually, that would be my dissertation defense. Graduation will just be a ceremony that takes place some time after I receive the degree).

I’ve been in this city a long time. After 4 years at Xavier and the two years I’ve been at Tulane, it really did feel like a second home. DID. This city is not the same and I am not convinced that it ever will be. 2/3 of the city looks like it did the first time I returned after the hurricane. The boats and abandoned cars haven’t even been moved out of the medians (we call them neutral grounds in New Orleans). Every single person I knew from undergrad has left the city. Phone, cable, internet? It may work, it may not. Restaurants? good luck finding one open. Grocery store? Good luck finding more than a fruit roll-up. Rent? It went up? Hole in the roof? Still there… blah, blah, blah. And I am in better shape than most. Still, I think it is time to leave.

The new lab will be in Aurora, just outside of Denver, on a former Army base (Fitzsimmons, named after the first American casualty of WWI). It was closed during the last round of BRAC in 1995 and then was brought by the University of Colorado. We will have more space in the new lab and it will be in a brand new $500 million dollar building. The university is the midst moving the medical school and research from the down town campus to the Fitzsimmons campus in Aurora. In total they plan to spend $1.5 billion over the next 5 years. Our current plans are to move during November or December of this year. The two post-docs plan to stay. The MD/PhD student who was going to join the lab this summer, is no longer joining and the other student is undecided.

In other news, we just got our official Tulane Hurricane evacuation plan today, which includes full evacuation of the facilities 48hrs before a Cat1 makes landfall in the gulf. I think it is safe to assume that if New Orleans receives a major hit this season, we will pack everything up and move immediately.

ASM Rap Up

William 1 Comment

These last few days have been exhausting. The poster presentation went great. It was really nice to have a chance to discuss my work with some of the top names in the field. It was even better that they liked where the project was going… On a side note, this discrepancy over the name of the gene I am studying is a little frustrating. A decade old pissing contest over which of two names should be used was resolved earlier this year. Apparently a few people were not aware of this and tried to take a tinkle on my leg. What’s the deal people? I am going by the sequenced genome. The name thing was resolved in the literature. What more am I supposed to do? Oddly enough, the major player on what was the opposing side liked the project and offered some resources from his lab for future studies. It looks like things are really going to get exciting over the next few months. (I am reluctant to name the gene or protein simply because I don’t want random researchers to google these names and happen upon my blog.)

The Poster

William 2 Comments

My lack of posting to the blog this past week was due to working on my poster for the American Society for Microbiology general meeting (ASM). It’s 70in x40in and had to be taken to a printer. The lab took our two posters, a post-doc is also presenting, to Kinko’s Wednesday. They told us they could turn them around in 24 hours. Thursday they gave us one poster. The resolution was horrible. It was pixilated and illegible. Of course we tell them that this was unacceptable and to redo the job, including the second poster. Friday they call us and tell us to pick them up at 3pm. When we arrived, they just kind of shrugged their shoulders and told us 6pm. At 6pm, they told us 8pm. At 8pm the guy running the printer told us he was going home and we could pick them up Saturday. Keep in mind that you have to apply to present a poster at this meeting and if you fail to present at the meeting, you are banned for 3 years. We had a 10am flight Sunday!!! Not being able to participate in ASM meetings is not something I want to explain to future employers. 9am Saturday my PI calls Kinko’s about picking up the posters, and they have no idea what he is talking about. He reminded them. Noon Saturday they call my PI and tell him, “We can’t do them.” Of course every other graphics company in New Orleans was A) Not reopened since the hurricane B) Closed on Saturday C) Closed on Election Day (Nagin won re-election, by the way.) In a mad dash to the lab around 2pm, to discuss our options with my PI, I saw two guys putting graphic decals on a car in front of a shop. I pulled over and asked if they could do large format printing. Turns out they are the largest in the State. They do all of the signs and posters for the Superdome. The owner had stopped in to pick up some papers, and I caught him just as he was walking out of his office. He took me to the production floor and printed both posters in a little over an hour, while I waited. Stumbling by this place may have been the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me, other than meeting a very pretty girl while taking out the trash…