Work, work, work...

The title sounds awfully dull, but my job is actually pretty cool. I started working for the Center for Veterinary Biologics, Virology Laboratory in Aug. 2011. In Feb. that year I had a friend give my resume to her boss, but nothing came of it. Just about the time I had given up on working there, I got an email from my micro. teacher saying they were looking for a student employee. I applied and luckily was chosen for the job! Even more fortunately, once I graduated in May I moved into a new scholarship position that is paying for my tuition at ISU! Once I get my masters, I will hopefully be offered a job. It's definitely not my dream job, but working here for a few years will get me a ton of experience and a paycheck while I job hunt! Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to take pictures inside the lab area, so the outside of the building will have to do!

Most of you have probably already seen the back of it from the interstate with all of the bison and horses. The entire building houses three different "departments".
1. The Center for Veterinary Biologics (where I work) does all the regulatory paperwork and testing to ensure that animal vaccines and diagnostic kits work and are safe.
2. The National Veterinary Services Lab diagnoses animal diseases sent in from state testing labs. The diagnosed/confirmed the fairly recent case of mad cow in California.
3. The Agricultural Research Service- they do all the cool stuff...that's where I would like to work as a research technician once I get my masters degree if I end up staying in Ames.

My masters project is to test a microarray assay to see if we can use it to detect viral contamination in viral vaccines (for example, if we detect coronavirus in a vaccine that's only supposed to have rotavirus, we know we have a problem.) We are finally getting close to getting started. This whole semester has been sort of a waste of time...but it took a lot longer for our colleague to design the array because he is so busy! Thankfully, though, for the next six months he is getting his current projects sidelined so he can help me and the other people in my building with our projects (he is in NY). I'm going to need all the help I can get. I have no experience with this technology, and neither do any of my coworkers in my lab. The test is conducted on a glass slide that looks exactly like a normal microscope slide. The exception is that it is printed with DNA and costs $900 a pop...so I'd better not screw it up. Wish me luck!