Yesterday my supervisor asked if a few of us from the lab could stay back and entertain a few people. These people were our major funding source and they came to hold a meeting at the hospital and stayed back to look at the sorts of things we do. We had 5 different stations set-up and each of us headed a station.
I had some pretty pictures of cells that had been stained for various proteins to show them and was just telling them about my project. As I was talking about my research I was reminded that what I do is actually important. I am reminded of this fact every now and again. As I was talking to our funding bodies, they looked at me wide-eyed and just kept saying, "That is amazing!".
When you are working with something day-in day-out, it isn't really a big deal to you. However, it is only when you meet people from a totally different field to you that you realise just how little the general public knows about the lab environment. They all thought that the centrifuge was truly amazing. They were totally stunned by the fact that I could pin point the exact location of a protein within a cell or that we were working at the MOLECULAR level.
I remember when I was in high school, I could never understand how people could study things they couldn't see with their naked eye - it was too abstract a thought to comprehend. I can't believe that I am one of them now!
It was nice to me reminded that what I am doing is not a total waste of time - then again, I only need for my current Western to not work to be disappointed again!
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