OMG! Go Go Science!

I was late to my own presentation this afternoon because I was developing a western blot that came out as a smear. On the plus side, it was only 10 minutes late, and my lab mates were entertained by cake.

The presentation (which should have only been 20 minutes long) went an hour, because my supervisor and two lab mates were speculating on my project and asking lots of questions about specificity, etc...

I didn't know the answers, until it came to E3-ligases, and the RAN binding protein family. I mentioned RANBP2 is an E3 ligase, and then one of the girls said, "Oh yeah, I remember RANBP2 coming up in one of my assays with your protein of interest."

So, suddenly, I have an E3-ligase that I know binds to my enzyme, and it's in the nucleus, and it's expressed in neurons. It also relates to the cell cycle things my lab mate is working on.

Suddenly I feel much better about my blot not turning out.

:)