Tag: OMIG

Doctor in training, teaching doctors in training

6th March 2016 / / 0 Comments

And so the practical SSC for undergraduate medics started and finished this week. Such a lovely group of students – very knowledgable, inquisitive and what I think was genuinely interested in oral microbiology!

The adherence assay is not a particularly challenging experiment to do, but for those that have no lab experience, it can still be quite exciting. The intro lecture was pretty good too – covered quite a lot of background, and hopefully passed on some knowledge and expertise of my own. Now they have a presentation of their own to think about and prepare for..

Final preparations are underway for OMIG which starts this Wednesday! Presentation is 95% finished, awaiting supervisors final input and then think about packing and the trip up :).

DM

When the PhD gives you lemons..

26th February 2016 / / 0 Comments

..make sure you get at least n=3. 

They say s PhD journey is 10% intelligence and 90% persistence and perseverance, and to be honest, I’m very lucky to have the project and supervision that I do. However, I would liked to have had this the other way around – not being able to get things to work in the first year, only to then generate a ton of data in the following years. It’s also times like these that the ‘imposter syndrome’ begins to rear its ugly head; why am I here when I can’t get s simple experiment to do what it should?! Why is cell biology such that cell lines appear to change in behaviour the more they’re passaged..that’s the whole point of an immortal cell line, it’s consistent! And thinking about it, it’s been consistent in my case but not the way it should be! Oh well, n=3 so whatever is, is.

On the positives, medic students are joining me next week for a dabble in the tiny world of microorganism and adherence,.going to be good fun and they’re really looking forward to it which is always nice :).

Preparation for OMIG well and truly underway too, car hire being sorted, presentations being written, posters being designed..and lots (and lots!) of lab work to boot! Looking forward to catching up with friends over a few drinks (soft, of course) 😉

DM

Abstract submission acceptance email

An early (or late) present-ation

1st February 2016 / / 0 Comments

Today I headed downstairs to the labs and bumped into Josh (friend of mine in my research group), and as we’d both submitted an abstract to OMIG for this year’s meeting, I suggested that we may hear sometime this week – as last time the response was about a week after the submission deadline.
Anyway, we had a chat and I said for him to keep an ear out toward the mid-and of the week for any news. Low and behold, literally two hours later, we received the notification email!

Both of us had received the same email stating we have accepted for oral presentation at the meeting, meaning our registration fee is to be waived! A great meeting, now made much more affordable for the group!!

The meeting is 9-11th March at Gregynog Hall, Newtown, and proves to be another great success. Looking forward to it!
DM 😀