Glow In The Dark Mice

Hey Guys and Gals

So today was my last day of work experience at the MRC and I must say it was rather awesome. I started off in the Spermy embyoey type place talking to some people about how you freeze mouse sperm. That wasn't particularly exciting but nevertheless I shan't complain. Then this Guy Jeremy (the guy with all the microscopes yesterday) managed to get us a tour of the Diamond facility next to the MRC. The Diamond is a synchrotron light source that generates intense beams of light (All across the spectrum, not just visible) by accelerating electrons at speeds near to the speed of light and then making them change direction causing light to be given off. So essentially the place I went today was a smaller version of the Large Hadron Colider in Switzerland, apart from the synchrotron doesn't collide the particles like the LHC only uses the light that it gives off. So that was really awesome and made some of my friends jealous. Then we went back to the MRC for lunch before heading to the Mammalian Genetics Unit where we had a look at all the different types of phenotyping they carry out there. But before we went in we had to change into scrubs, then put on these big clunky shoes and then a boiler suit and hairnet. Then we had to have an air shower.  As you can imagine its basically a chamber where you stand while loads of vents shoot you with air jets. It was serious business preventing any disease getting into the facility. They even disinfected the rooms with hydrogen peroxide vapour. So then we looked at how they test the mice's behavior and stuff.

Now here was the cool bit. We then into one of the 'wards' and one of the scientists showed us some of the genetically engineered mice they had. One lot even glowed in the dark. How cool is that? Like seriously, glow in the dark, live mice. They had done it by implanting a gene from a jelly fish into a mouse embryo. It was so cool.

So yes, that was my last day of work experience, it was rather epic and I've had a great week, thoroughly worth giving up my half term for it.

Good Night xxx