Life as a Scientist
Since starting as a recent graduate at RAFT, I have learnt that it is, to say the least, incredibly frustrating. It involves a lot of forehead slapping, and exclamations of ‘Why God, Why?’ Even though you’re not entirely sure if god exists, this seems the perfect opportunity to appeal to a higher power.
Some people think that science is about spending large amounts of time holed up in a tiny corner of a sterile white lab, in a white lab coat mixing chemicals of bright colours which do exciting things like change colour, bubble, fizz and explode. Other people think of little old bespectacled men with wild white hair, who speak to themselves and secretly plot world domination. I can’t say with total honesty that we don’t have our fair share of accidentally blowing things up and setting other things alight, and I have to admit that during my lunch breaks I often find myself day dreaming about being Queen of the world. But there is much more to it than that.
Given the nature of the research conducted at RAFT, much of the work is done on cells. The fantastic thing about cells is that they are ridiculously resilient; they will survive being removed from tissue using harsh enzymes, being frozen down, starved and irradiated. But then one day you might realise that they have all died. For no particular reason at all, but then again it could be worse, you may culture them for a week, and looking down the microscope, find that they don’t really look like human cells, in fact they don’t look like any cells you’ve ever seen (yes, this has happened). When you finally give up trying to figure out what the hell is going on, its time to beat a tactical retreat to the kitchen, for a coffee break.
One thing I learnt quite early on is that the research department is fuelled by coffee, and there is nothing worse than when the coffee runs out. Even the stale stuff that sat in the corner and stopped resembling anything organic a while back. The coffee I assure you is absolutely pivotal to scientific research.
Some experiments can take up to twelve hours to set up and observe. You may turn up diligently at oh nine hundred hours sharp, but it will take you another hour to locate all the various chemicals. Then calculations must be done to figure out how much of x or y you are going to need. Then comes the weighing and measuring. There will also be some chemicals that will flat out refuse to dissolve. By the time everything is ready, half the day has gone, and its already one o’clock. After running to the canteen for something that vaguely resembles something you would call ‘food’, its time to start. In my experience, experiments work out only about half the time, and in the words of Dr Julian Dye (Head of the Wound Healing Research Department) ‘If an experiment works out first time, you’ve probably done something wrong’.
One of the most frustrating tasks has to be to figure out how to make a new machine work, using nothing but a user manual spanning three thousand pages, and let me tell you right now, this is one thing Google definitely can’t help you with. There will be much head scratching, page flicking, staring into space, then staring at the machine, hoping the power of you mind alone will make the machine work. Failing all these things, you could always take to pressing random buttons, which could however cause a random component to come hurtling towards your head (I refuse to accept that there is no excitement in science). It will actually take you on average two hours to work out how to get the sample loading station to move up and down.
I actually stumbled into science, its possibly the best thing to have happened to me. There was no miraculous sign, or great booming voice in my head, but having become a scientist, I find myself working with people who’s intelligence astounds me every day. People who not only get, but appreciate my geeky jokes. Every day is a challenge, and you have to be creative and think on your feet, but then even if the worst comes to pass, there is an office full of people who are willing to take the time to offer you advice and guidance. I love my job. It has me jumping out of bed in the morning. I get to conduct experiments never done before, meet people who are doing ground breaking research. The best thing about Science is there is no such thing as failure. If an experiment doesn’t work, you’ve still learnt something new. And even after millennia of research, there is still so much to learn!
Niro Ragunathan
Research Assistant at RAFT
