A little retail therapy

Work is getting very scary. For the last three weeks, this photo represents my working day. Experiments are over, leaving just the boring writing part. My writing time is split between two tasks: Forming the discussion of my report, where I have to try to (a) make sense of what my findings mean and (b) find out where they belong in the current literature, and writing my talk. Up until two days ago, this was just a precautionary measure in case I got accepted by the conference, but now it's really happening. God help me.

I was mentally prepared for the tail end of my placement involving being chained to my desk writing for eight hours a day, but actually doing it still stings when I think about how casually I treated work a few months ago. Maybe in hindsight knuckling down when there was no time pressure would have lightened the load in these closing weeks. Said every student ever! On the other hand, I'm glad I enjoyed myself when I could, especially when the weather was nicer. Most importantly, whether or not the stress of these last two weeks destroy my soul, I'm going home in THIRTEEN DAYS! The stress that overcomes me when I think of how much I still have to do, combine with the fact that I was entering my penultimate weekend in Australia, justified a Saturday shopping trip.

What can I say? I went all out. My suitcase may now be a few kilos heavier, but my significantly lightened bank balance will probably counteract that. Nike Free 5.0, anyone? I also bought an iPad (finally!) because they're a lot cheaper here than in the UK and a few gifts for my loved ones. Other than that, let's say I'm now kitted out for winter with some luscious knitwear. Shame I'm going back to summer in England...

I was on cloud nine until my walk from Cottesloe station to our house was plagued by pretty much the heaviest downpour I've ever experienced. Like, tropical rain that standing under a tree can't alleviate. It's a good job I had new purchases to cheer me up, because I looked like a drowned rat with a serious case of the shivers when I finally splashed up to the front door. Worst timing ever! With practice talks this coming Thursday and comments on my entire report to attend to, thinking of the shiny new things waiting for me at home will be the only thing that keeps me sane this week.

Not a happy bunny.

Abstract accepted

Just a very quick update amidst the tornado of coffee and paper that is currently my life: I've had official confirmation today that my abstract has been accepted by ASMR and I'll be presenting at the conference. To a lecture theatre full of doctors. In 13 days. Blimey.

I also appear to be the only undergraduate of the 105 speakers...

Vance Joy

I may go as far as to say that last night was the most fun I’ve had in Perth. It got off to a very good start when I arrived home from work to a parcel from Topshop; I’m not usually one for getting overly excited about clothes, but I’d been waiting for this denim jacket and skirt to arrive for ages and a Vance Joy gig seemed the perfect opportunity to wear them. I’m not sure whether you guys in the UK are familiar with Vance Joy yet but he’s great; his song Riptide was number one on Triple J’s Hottest 100 songs of the year and is bound to be the song of the summer back home when England catches up. Listen to his feel-good sound here:

We cracked open a bottle of wine to sip while getting ready and put on some Vance to get us in the mood. Armed with the rest of our wine stash, we made our way into the city on a very busy commuter train and walked through the chilly evening air to Taka’s for a cheap Japanese dinner. The wine washed down our miso katsu very well indeed and before we knew it, it was time to make a move. From the city centre, we crossed the train line into Northbridge and down James Street to The Bakery. It started to rain just as were having our tickets checked and arms stamped in the outdoor queue. The building was made of huge, bright red industrial units stacked on top of each other, with some of the roof cut off to make an open-walled garden and the low-ceilinged inside decked with fairy lights. Upon further exploration in our mischievously tipsy state, we found a winding corridor lined with thick red curtains (good hiding places for scaring Candice) that lead to the funkiest toilets I’ve ever seen!

We got a round of ciders in and found a place in the crowd as the lights went down. His support act was Gosling, a band similar to The XX and London Grammar; the girl had a really unusual, high voice and their mixture of covers and original songs were a nice warm up to Vance. As for the main man himself, he was even better than we’d expected; he played all the songs we knew and a few we didn’t, all with his lovely tone and trademark ukelele. He is also an absolute dreamboat; I was very disappointed to hear other girls mention that they swore he was looking straight at them as he sang. Damn those dark eyes!

The man himself

We were three more ciders worse for wear as the lights came back on and the search for some late-night sweet treats suddenly overtook the wish to move onto another bar on our list of priorities. The Moon satisfied this purpose magnificently and is probably our best unexpected find yet: An all-night diner in Northbridge serving cocktails and, more importantly, puddings at all times. A chocolate pizza and a banana split between three, washed down with Moscow Mules, was absolute heaven and gave us the energy necessary to party on. On the way back to the station, we nipped into The Universal bar, where a great live band was churning out great tunes for dancing, which is precisely what we did. I love those two McKiernan girls so much! By this point, the night was far from young, so we made our way home and collapsed into bed.

Happy Candle munching on banana split

 It’s safe to say that none of us were feeling particularly fresh this morning, so a remedial breakfast was definitely the order of the day. I am always astounded at the sheer number of amazing eateries in the area and Bib ‘n’ Tucker in North Fremantle, which we’ve had earmarked for ages, was no exception. Attached to the life-saving centre, the restaurant has a terrace running around the outside and our outdoor table provided much-needed fresh air and the bonus of beautiful ocean views. Fresh orange juice, coffee and Eggs Benedict accompanied by hilarious snippets of the previous night (Candice fended off some unwanted male attention with “all four of us have men”. There were only three of us…) had me revived to the point of readiness for a short stint at work, which is now occurring with almost minimal discomfort. The girls are currently on their way home to treat Maggs for the Mother’s Day weekend and my agenda consists of an early night, before stocking the fridge with goodies and welcoming the lovely Timothy Lyne to Perth for his little holiday from placement in Adelaide, which is bound to involve lots more eating out. It’s almost as if work doesn’t exist!

Brekky at Bib 'n' Tucker

Sian's farewell dinner

Aside from the mountain of work plaguing my days in the lab, this week is shaping up to be filled with fun! My weekend was quiet due to Jess embarking on a spontaneous trip home, so I made winding down from this hectic schedule a priority. A couple of leisurely shopping trips to Fremantle and Claremont and a Sunday morning in bed with a cup of tea and my book certainly did the trick and I felt nicely rested going into yet another week. However, an entire Monday spent sitting in a dark room imaging on the microscope had me feeling trapped and gagging to get out into the wide world as soon as possible.

Cue the McKiernan sisters coming to my rescue as always! Candice is work-free and up in Perth with Jess until Friday afternoon, when they’ll go back to Dunsborough for the Mothers’ Day weekend. We have a few treats planned, but first on the list was a goodbye dinner for Sian on Tuesday night before she embarks on six months of travelling. Her and her boyfriend are having a month in Bali before she moves onto the UK and Europe solo. Fingers crossed she’ll be able to get down to Cornwall at some point during the summer, so it was only a temporary goodbye, but the separation was long enough to warrant great food, drink and chat with the girls.

After a very quick shower, change and cider when I got home from work, the McKiernans and I set off from our place to catch the two trains necessary to get us to Leederville for 6pm. We managed the first train into the city with no issues and couldn’t believe our luck when we hopped on a connecting train with seconds to spare… before the tannoy informed us that this particular train was direct to Stirling, missing out Leederville Station. Typical! We got off and waited for another train back to Leederville (second time lucky), then walked to The Garden, where we were meeting the girls for dinner. Sian was already there with Britt, who the girls went to school with and is coincidentally doing her PhD in Biochemistry at UWA and going to the conference next month, and Rosie joined us a little later.

We dined of half-price pizza (prawn, pesto and panchetta – yum) and drank local cider in the outdoor dining area filled with patio heaters, candles and plants, which was just lovely. The weather was lovely and warm for autumn and I tried this custard cider by Indian Ocean brewery: spectacular! After feeling like I’d settled into a very dull routine of work-home-sleep repeat, being out with the girls felt great. After dinner, we went to Rosie’s new houseshare in Mount Lawley for a snoop around (and to pass judgement on her hot new housemates), and then went to the local pub for another drink. By this time it was getting pretty late, so Britt and Rosie left and the McKiernans, Sian and I got a taxi home. I must have had a good night, because getting up for work was very difficult indeed and my eyes have been going out all day. It’s a quiet one with a movie and chocolate tonight before we head into the city tomorrow night to see the wonderful Vance Joy perform at The Bakery. Happy days!

Candi and I at The Garden

Britt, Rosie, Jess and Sian. Safe travels Siany!

Who needs a bed anyhow?

One of the obstacles you have to deal with while living abroad short-term is sourcing all the large items that are essential to life (but impossible to fly over) without breaking the bank. Having lead a very sheltered life in South Perth, I only encountered this problem when I moved out of the Billinghams’ and in with Jess. For example, I had to buy a second-hand bike (and collect it from bloody miles away without a car), which I’m currently in the process of trying to sell on.

A little more essential to everyday living than two-wheeled transport (if it gets sold before I leave, there’s always the bus) is bedroom furniture, which I was very lucky with when I initially moved into Peppermint Grove. Sian, Jess’ previous housemate, was graduating and moving back in with her parents down south while she worked during the summer and left me everything in her bedroom, including the best bed in the world. However, she’s about to go travelling for four months (including Cornwall – yay!), meaning she had to come up and clear out her room last week so that her parents don’t have to do it by themselves when the lease finishes. This culminated in me leaving a fully furnished room on Monday and returning from work to the exact opposite. No desk, no chair and, most importantly, no bed. It’s extremely lucky that Jess had a spare single mattress; otherwise I’d either be sleeping on the floor or, even worse, searching the verge sales for a mouldy and probably bug-infested replacement. My new arrangement is “minimalistic” to say the least:

Before

After. To quote Step Brothers: "So much room for activities!"... Unless said activities include working, sitting down or sleeping anything more than three inches off the ground.

I only joke about my ferral living conditions. Firstly, it was lovely of Sian to let me use her stuff in the first place and I can’t begrudge her reclaiming it. Secondly, I’m actually loving the whole bed-on-the-floor set up! It reminds me of having a den as a kid and is super cosy now the weather’s starting to get colder. For the sake of five weeks, I think I can put up with my new tramp-chic lifestyle.

No turning back!

Happy May everyone! With a mere five weeks of Australian life left, things have suddenly got very, very scary at work. This morning, I submitted an abstract (a very brief summary of part of the research I’ve done here) to the Australian Society of Medical Research. I’ll find out next week whether they find it interesting enough to invite me to do a talk at the annual conference during my last week in Perth. For anyone interested in what I’ve been up to, here it is:

Calixarenes and calixarene-capped nanoparticles reduce reactive species induced by glutamate in neuronal cells in vitro

 Emma K Stephens¹  

¹Experimental and Regenerative Neurosciences, School of Animal Biology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009, Australia.

 Traumatic injury to the central nervous system (CNS) has catastrophic and widespread effects on the survival and function of neurons and glia. The abnormal Ca²⁺ influx that occurs in response to injury is closely associated with increases in reactive species which, when ineffectively controlled by endogenous antioxidant mechanisms, culminate in oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a feature of traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, making it a target for therapeutic strategies. Existing antioxidants that are effective in the treatment of CNS injury exhibit problems with solubility and additional antioxidants and/or delivery mechanisms are required to overcome these limitations. Nanomedicine is emerging as a therapeutic avenue that is capable of offering highly specific antioxidant drug delivery. Calix[n]arenes are a class of macrocyclic organic nanoparticle of 100nm diameter, where n represents the number of phenolic moieties arranged in a ring. Calix[4]arenes have been shown to deliver curcumin to stressed cells and also have inherent antioxidant properties, but the antioxidant effects of other calixarenes are unknown. Here we assess the effects of a range of calix[n]arene cyclic oligomers (designated SCn, PCn or CD), both alone and linked to silver nanoparticles, on the production of reactive species by neuronal-like PC12 cells exposed to glutamate stress. The indicator dichlorofluorescein diacetate was used to assess the presence of reactive species. We show that treatment with 1, 10 or 100μg mL^-1 calix[4]- and calix[6]arene preparations for 60 minutes significantly reduced the glutamate-induced increase in reactive species. The efficacy of SC4a, SC4b and SC6a was dependent on linkage to silver nanoparticles, whereas both the pure and nanoparticle-linked forms of SC4c, SC6b and SC6c significantly reduced reactive species. There was no significant reduction in reactive species after treatment with the SC8a/b/c, PC4 or CD preparations. We also demonstrate that the calix[n]arene preparations were not toxic to glutamate-stressed PC12 cells at the highest experimental concentration of 100μg mL^-1, with no significant effect on cell viability or morphology. In terms of future direction, it is worthwhile to assess the efficacy of these preparations as antioxidants in the treatment of neurotrauma in vivo.

This conference is a big deal. Part of the West Australian branch of ASMR’s Medical Research Week, it’s attended by hundreds of clinicians, academics and other professionals and covers not only neuroscience, but medical research as a whole. As someone who isn’t overly fond of public speaking at the best of times, the thought of presenting in front of a group of such reputable people fills me with dread and I’m not sure whether I’ll be chuffed or terrified if I get a talk. I’m glad that I’m not alone though; two others from team Lindy, Wissam and Ryan, have also submitted and the rest of the office will be attending the conference for moral support, which runs for one day in the first week of June. We’ll be doing a practice to the team in the week leading up to the big day, so I feel secure in the knowledge that Lindy won’t let me do it unless it’s good and I know it word for word. I’m telling myself that it’ll be an experience and it would definitely look good on my CV. All of this is presumptuous of the abstract being accepted of course!

Even if I don’t get accepted, the whole team has registered for the Gala Dinner on the Friday night following the conference, which also happens to be my last night in Australia! It’s a three-course formal dinner at the Hilton Hotel in the city, followed by the prize-giving (did I mention I could win $500 for my talk?!) and a dance. The lab is covering the cost and, from what I’ve heard of previous conferences, it’s a rare chance for us to see the more senior members of staff come out of their shells, have a few too many drinks and dance the night away, so it should be a lot of fun. I’ll have to be very careful with the wine though; my flight the following morning is at 6am, meaning I’ll have to be at the airport at 3am and up even earlier. I envisage myself getting next to no sleep as it is, so adding a hangover to a situation that already includes an 20-hour journey would just be foolish. The other option would be remaining drunk the entire time…

Aside from the conference, work currently consists of finishing the last few experiments that will generate preliminary data for the next Bath student’s project (you’re welcome love) and frantically writing up drafts of various chunks of my report, which I hope to finish before I leave so I don’t have to worry about it during the extra long summer I’ve been looking forward to forever. I’m pleased to say that, despite all going slightly mad from the pressure, my work friends and I are finding time to make the lab a little more bearable. Yesterday, I required help from Ryan to take some photos of my spinal cord injury technique for both my methods section and Lindy’s collaborative paper that I’ll be an author on. Needless to say, this descended into selfies within the space of five minutes! Ryan and Marcus are also currently enjoying repeating whatever I say in a cockney accent, which is both inaccurate and irritating, but in a good way. I fail to understand how such moronic individuals are currently doing their PhDs. I’m glad of the laughs though; god knows what would happen to us if we had to be serious all the time!

Mmmm, spinal cord

Post-it presents left on my lab book. My "favourite phrases"