Postcard from...the Lab

How can I explain to my graduate students that nothing really is something?

I say that I still remember.  And I do - I remember that year and a half when every gas chromatographic trace looked the same - when there wasn't a single piece of evidence to suggest that I was even close to finding an anaerobic consortium of sediment microorganisms that could remove bromines from the polybrominated biphenyl (PBBs) mixture, Firemaster.  I set up anaerobic enrichment cultures weekly, extracted them weekly, ran the resulting samples on the gas chromatograph 24/7.  Nothing.  The lab was basking in the glow of a Science paper (Quensen JF III, Tiedje JM, Boyd SA. 1988. Reductive dechlorination of PCBs by anaerobic microorganisms from sediments. Science 242:752-754) - CNN filmed the lab, General Electric was estactic (they funded much of the work).  The paper demonstrated for the first time that anaerobic microorganisms were responsible for the dechlorination of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) - a finding that changed the way we view this group of contaminants in the environment.

But then bromines should be energetically easier for a microorganism to remove.  Right?  Easy project.  But for a year and a half, nothing.

Do any of you remember the Firemaster story?  When bags of the brominated flame retardant Firemaster were accidentally feed to cattle in Michigan?  Here's an excerpt:

Sometime in May or June 1973, the Michigan Chemical Co. accidentally shipped a fire retardant with the brand name of Firemaster to Farm Bureau Services, a supplier for thousands of Michigan farmers, in place of Nutrimaster, a cattle feed containing magnesium oxide. Firemaster was a brand name for PBB, a four-year-old chemical used to reduce the flammability of plastics and electrical circuits. Customers incorporated Firemaster in auto dashboards and casings for telephones and hair dryers. The mistake apparently happened at a time when Michigan Chemical ran out of preprinted bags and hand-lettered the trade names of the two products in black. The similarity of product names or perhaps the smudging of the letters was all it took to make the first link in a disastrous chain of events.In October 1973, the state Department of Agriculture’s head diagnostician inspected the sickened dairy herd of Fred Halbert of Battle Creek and at first suspected lead poisoning. When tests for lead proved negative, the department sought help from Michigan State University and laboratories in Wisconsin, Iowa and New York to isolate the contaminant in the feed. Not until May 1974 did the department determine, with help from Halbert’s son Rick, a chemical engineer, that PBB was the poison. The department then tested feed and farm products across the state. By 1975 the state had quarantined more than 500 farms and condemned for slaughter over 17,000 cattle, 3,415 hogs, 1.5 million chickens, and 4.8 million eggs. PBB was removed from the market. In the 1980s, the state health department confirmed that approximately 95 per cent of Michigan’s population had residues of PBB in fat tissue.

I remember thinking that I'd never be able to do it.  That an observation that we thought would be relatively simply, might just not happen (for me at least) - and what would I do?  It was my dissertation project.

But then it happened.  In one serum bottle filled with sediment from the Pine River (the river adjacent to the plant that manufactured PBBs).  The gas chromatographic traces between the control (autoclaved sediments) and live (containing sediments with live microorganisms) treatments were different - and showed that some of the heavily brominated PBB congeners were reduced in concentration, and that new, less brominated PBB congeners were formed.  From nothing to something.

During yesterday's lab meeting, Katherine presented a poem from Wyn Cooper, a poet who got his career kick-started when Sheryl Crowe  asked to use his poem 'Fun' as the basis for what would become Crowe's big hit 'All I Wanna Do'.  As Katherine introduced the poem - she said that she felt it was about luck - but also about the virtue found in hard work - the essence of which was captured simply in the last line of the poem 'Wrote every day no matter what.'  Writing and science really are the same - you just keep doing it. Every day.  I joke with the lab about how I'm happy as long as there is 'forward progress'...and much of that progress can be defined as showing up, showing up at the lab bench and starting another experiment, regardless of the frustration and the obstacles and the remaining questions.  I know now that for that year and a half of nothing, that I was learning, ruling out possibilities, refining my skills in anaerobic culturing and polyhalogenated biphenyl analysis by gas chromatography.  However when students in my own lab are going through similar periods of frustration - I want to tell them that it will be okay, that interesting discoveries will be made - that simply keeping at it is worth everything - but I also know that this has to be their own road.  Their own path to discovery.  Personally as well as scientifically.  Hopefully, yesterday, the poem that Katherine chose to read to us will help a little - perhaps we need to edit it a bit, perhaps change the title to 'Postcards from the Lab'...or perhaps it's perfect as it is.    

Postcard from the Party

by Wyn Cooper (Postcards from the Interior, BOA Editions, LTD)

You have to be invited, and there's nothing
you can do to be asked. Headlines and bloodlines
don't help. It's a long way from home but I'm
here, the view much better than I'm used to.
How did this happen? Dumb but good luck,
right place and time, the planets aligned.
No contract, no deadline, no risk. And what
did I do to deserve this? Slept with all
the wrong people, gambled too much on friends
of friends with light bulbs over their heads.
Wrote every day no matter what.

Comments

[Annie in Austin]

It took a couple of read-throughs to get it, but the brain cells clicked and I loved your story. The poem was easier, the biography fun to read - also enjoyed "Postcard From Searsburg" which was linked from the poet site. Thank you, Pam!

[Pam]

Annie: After I wrote this, I was thinking that it might not make much sense - so I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it! Sometimes (most of the time) I just ramble. It was written after a frustrating day in the lab - when I had a student that was frustrated with it all, and I just wasn't sure how to help. Then I realized that perhaps I wasn't supposed to help all that much anyway - but it's a fine line and not always a clear one! I hope that you've warmed up a bit over in Austin - those ice photos of your garden were great!

[Nelumbo]

I admire your patience and perspective. I was one of those easily frustrated students! I guess that's why I choose a career in teaching and ran from research. But now I'm looking to get invovled in research again and I think with maturity I'll approach it with a better attitude this time.

[Pam]

Nelumbo: How funny - I've always thought that you have to be incredibly patient to teach, and I think I ran towards the research side because I'm impatient! Good luck with the research - I can honestly say that I still pinch myself sometimes that I'm still able to support myself as a research scientist...except for all of the tedious crazy stuff (administrative stuff, grant writing!) it's a pretty good day job.