Weekend bonus blog! What is my project actually about?

Normally, I only post new blogs on weekdays, but I've treated you all this week to a bonus weekend post to answer a question that I've kept quite under wraps throughout this blog - what is this project I'm working on actually about?!



via GIPHY

Well, for a start, there is a reason I have been a little bit elusive on this topic. Technically, the work I do belongs to the university, not me. Therefore officially, the information I gather is not my property to share with the public and the world - and this blog is open for anyone and everyone to read. And as I've said before, my subject area - as you'd expect - is quite niche, meaning this blog could be easily found with a quick google search if I was specific!


Although I love how science is such a collaborative subject and sharing research can open your eyes to new angles and opinions on topics - it's not worth the hassle and the sabotage of my degree just to include the specifics of my project on the blog!


Also, the main purpose of this blog is to share and reflect on my personal experience of working in a research lab each day, which means I still have lots to talk about without being super specific on the in's and out's of the research itself.


But as I'm getting a few more readers I thought I'd give a brief overview to add a bit of context to all the other blogs!
My project is all about a cell signalling pathway that leads to a disease, and I'm looking for a protein that we think plays a role in this pathway , but we're not sure how. So my question has been to find out if this protein of interest is involved in this pathway, and does it increase/decrease/stay the same when the cell is stressed? And how does this change over time? What transcription factors and genes might regulate the protein I'm interested in and does my protein regulate the expression of other proteins that may go on to affect the cell?


It is quite a classic biochemistry project, but unique as it is looking at a protein that has been identified in lots of other diseases and places in the body, but not yet in the location and cell that I'm looking at!


So I hope you enjoyed this blog post and, granted, still quite vague explanation! And continue to follow my journey over the coming weeks!

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