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"The week has been chockers!", let me just quote what my supervisor said today, as the last week of November finally came to an end and we embraced the many nerve-racking moments that we went through in the past month and year, as we prepare to wind down for end of year.

It is obvious that real life does not always turn out what we expect it to. It applies to all the elements in life. Many things like school, work, career can be always perfectly planned but also can be instantly shifted, delayed or worse shattered, because of just like what COVID-19 has done to us all!

When I was in my undergraduate biotech program, I had so much interest in microbiology I thought I would one day have a PhD in virology and make vaccines. But opportunities came around and I took the risk to studying tissue engineering; as to this decade is still the state-of-the-art for growing/regenerating tissues. Although only few tissue engineered materials have been commercialized and reported successful in clinics, extensive research in the field holds a huge promise and carries an interesting multidisciplinary elements. And that's how I ended up in biomedical engineering.

The curse of knowledge!

Defined by Stephen Pinker as "The inability to imagine what it is like for someone else for not knowing something that you know".

So it is indeed quite a dangerous curse, and I am sure all researchers out there have it to an extent at any stage of their career. I could say that I was or maybe am still badly cursed, but I have been very aware of its presence since the moment I stepped into research. 

Now with only 1 person allowed in the cell culture room at a time, I often work in the lab all by myself. It is fun to have all that space but I also realize these little annoying things can be even more infuriating when I have no one around to complain to! Of course they are harmless, but can you relate to these?

Finally! The university has reopened and I am allowed to be in the lab again! Things gradually pick up as we are still in "Phase 1 Return To Work" and that means I am now juggling a lot between lab and writing. But I really love it! It brings me joy to be in the lab again 😆

So, consider this post as an answer to all your questions and wonders what a biomedical researcher like me does in the lab. My research focuses on stem cells adaptation to mechanical stimuli. So, there are different aspects I want to study from the cells and lots of techniques needed to get different information, qualitatively and quantitatively. I could say that all my experiments revolve around the stem cells.