What is your
scariest nightmare? How about being grounded at home for a month or failing in
all the subjects or embarrassing yourself in front of your crush or losing
someone you love??
I’m not very worried about any of these. For me it’s when my
cells die! By saying cells, I’m not talking about those in my body. They die
out everyday and I don’t give a shit about them. You see, I’m growing some live
neural cells called N2a cells and breast cancer cells called T47D cells in my
lab. These kinds of human cells are grown so that drugs can be tested on them
like on lab rats. Unless the drugs are tested in live human tissues, they
cannot be approved in FDA for selling in the market.
And so
coming back, I grow a few flasks of these cells as a part of my project.
Growing cells can be the toughest job on earth! They just refuse to grow in
flasks if you forget to give them the required nutrition in the right time or
if they think their personal space is being encroached by other cells and they
need a new flask for themselves every time they produce new ones. And they
simply go on strike and starve to death if they have to share the flask with
other fungi or prions. Those selfish little pigs!
It’s
frustrating how a little spore of fungi can kill almost all the flask of cells
in the lab. As I carefully give them good food, space, carbon di oxide (Yea!
They absolutely love it) and humidity and watch over them everyday and one fine
day I come to the lab to see them all dead!! Oh my babies!!! :’(
Life is
CRUEL!!