Research Technician

I have moved around the Sars Centre (for Marine Molecular Biology) a bit now since beginning here with a 50% position last November. Now I am moving my way up the ladder. Last week I began full-time as a research technician for the cnidaria facility (sea anemones).



My main responsibility is keeping the animals alive by regulating the tank system, feeding and washing the animals. I have become quite technical with the new position.

So in the morning when I come in, I prepare the food (artemia sea monkeys) to feed the Nematostella (anemones). And then prepare the batch of artemia due for feeding the day after next. Then I give them some time to eat. In the meantime, the resesarchers put boxes of animals in the incubators to stimulate reproduction. I pull out packages of eggs and fertilize them.

Cultivating brine shrimp/sea monkeys/artemia


The boxes get washed on a schedule - each one is done once a month. And that takes up most of my day. However, next week I will learn how to identify transgenic animals. So once the animals I fertilized go back up to the lab, the eggs begin to develop and a florescent dye is injected into the embryos. This dye tracks how the nervous system develops. Nematostella is a common species to do these tests on because they are so simple.


There are twice as many boxes as this that get taken care of in our facility. Two new research groups will start in the fall and also use the animals.  

Hydra are also taken care of in the facility. They are relatively labor intensive for such tiny critters.
So that is a look into my day, as of now. It's quite a tiring and active job, but I'm enjoying being employed full time. Also, still need to get those pictures from Marius to post about our Madrid trip last month.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Smalahove

Image
Many Norwegian traditions are distinctly regional. Even recipes are variable by region to go along with dialects that can be different by town separated by just 50 kilometers. This tradition, that both Marius and I were new to trying, was from a town just about an hour and a half east of Bergen called Voss....smalahove, or half of a sheep's head that is cooked in a broth for several hours. Smalahove comes from two Norwegian words: smale = sheep, and hove = head. It is served before Christmas with potatoes, mashed rutabaga, and red cabbage. Many of my friends were telling me that the cheek is supposed to be the best part, and others were saying that they wouldn't dare eat it. So I can now say that I have done something that many other Norwegians haven't dared try. I actually really enjoyed it! It had a texture like corned beef and had a very nice flavor. Marius went as far as to try the tongue, and thought that eating the eye was a normal thing, so tried that as well...bu...
Read more

In case you missed it, I moved back to Bergen

Image
But only temporarily, as of yet. In the beginning of the month I took the train from Oslo to Bergen. It was a beautiful trip cross-country ascending to over 1000m above sea level and back down again. My friend Knut said that I could stay at his place until an apartment was available to rent. I picked up the key from his mom, dropped off my things, and went back downtown to go to my Norwegian course. He was out of town for the week for work, and my first day of work was not until the following Monday. So I used the next five days reacquainting myself with Bergen....mainly by running around my old neighborhood. On Monday (Nov 10) I started my new (tempoary) part time job at UniResarch Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology...UniSars for short. Technically I am called a "research technician", but I'm more like a glorified dishwasher at the moment. I made sure to tell the researchers that I am more than capable to help them if they need an extra pa...
Read more

FIFA 2010 South Africa

Image
FIFA 2010 kicked off on June 11 and today, New Zealand will today make a return to the world’s greatest football stage exactly 28 years to the day since their FIFA World Cup debut. The All Whites will take on Slovakia at 11PM (New Zealand time). It is hard to say whether it will be a good game or not; however, the fact that NZ is in the world cup for the first time in so long is enough of a reason to stay up so late. Saturday morning was the big USA vs. England match. The Americans are so happy with a tie that the New York Post had this as its front page: The time difference makes it a bit hard to keep up with seeing the games, but it's always fun to rub in the fact that the British tied the US in their first World Cup game this year to some British friends. Next exam is Saturday for Invertebrate Diversity. And only 20 days to go til Thailand!!
Read more