The characters in this play are real. Any resemblance with anyone is absolutely intentional.
The Boss- head of chemical biology lab
Vy- fifth year graduate student
April- first year postdoctoral fellow
Sailaja- second year postdoctoral fellow
Karthik- fourth year graduate student
Maritza- first year graduate student
Caitlin- fourth year graduate student
me- first year postdoctoral fellow
Scene 1, Act 1
BPR Building, University of Utah Medical School
Monday
8:33 AM, enter the lab from organic chemistry side and immediately smell of triethylamine greets me.
Me: Vy, what the heck is the smell? Why don't you use the fumehood when you work with obnoxious substances?
Vy: I always work in the hood. I do not know where the smell comes from.
Me: ok
8:40 AM, I am web browsing in my laptop and Vy, beside me, is chatting with her "millionaire boyfriend" and her other Vietnamese friends.
Me: Boss is here yet?
Vy (while intently typing on her messenger screen): Yes. He was talking with April on the other side of the lab. She already got one Kuby this morning.
(One Kuby is defined as half an hour of non-stop talk from boss. Mathematically, 1 Kuby= 30 min * 1000 words (give or take)/ min by Kuby, the boss. This definition has been redefined, recently, as total number of spit-laden words that can kill 50 zebra fish i.e. the IC50Kuby )
Me: Nice, I need to start working then. If he sees me sitting, I will be next victim.
Vy: My boyfriend does not want to marry me. I am already old.
She always brings up, randomly, getting married or having babies or going out for shopping in the weekend or complain about her roommate etc. I just ignore her.
9:30 AM, Boss walks by and I get busy examining round bottom flask. I know that there is nothing in it, but, I am completely absorbed in it and put a magnetic stir bar.
The Boss: Good morning Mausam, How was the weekend? Do you have anything to talk? science?
Me: Nope, everything is fine.
The Boss: I came this morning and there was a strong smell.
Me: I felt that too. Someone is probably working with amine base.
The Boss: We need to be careful. It is not good for health.
Me. Yep, yep!
The Boss (slowly thumping his left chest with right fist to jump start his slow heart, started with low voice): I am under lot of pressure due to the new grant. I want you to help me writing a story of our research in the lab in last six months.
Me: Yep, yep!
The Boss: I want you to help me, you know. I am under tremendous stress. I am going to NIH meeting next month and then, will go to Virgina for another meeting. Then, I have to submit Vimal's review paper. I will take one week off to read Vy and Thao's paper and submit them.
After an injection of one Kuby, he started again.
Me: Yep, yep!
The Boss: Where do you stand on your quantum dot project?
Me: I am running gel and figure out the binding of quantum dot with protein.
The Boss: Good; Mausam, I want you to be successful and work hard, exercise and most importantly, happy. When I was in MIT, I used to go to lab at 7 AM and come back at midnight. My boss was hard-nose on science, but, he did not care about my health.
(He slowly and surely moving towards my face)
No adviser will ask you to take care of your health. But, I want you to be successful, work hard and healthy.
Telephone rang and Vy answers the call. I hear a few words flying from her mouth.
Vy: V for Victor, Y for Yellow, T for Tom, R for rabbit, A for Apple and N for Nancy.
Me: (There, we go again)
In the meantime, Kuby is at fervor pitch. It is already 10:30 AM. Karthik comes in and switches off the lights in the lab for his experiment.
10:30 AM
The Boss: Oh! my God (his response to switching off lights). Coming back Mausam, I want you to work hard, but, have fun too. You need to exercise, eat good food and work hard.
Redundancy sets in and boss is recycling the sentences. Fortunately, Sailaja, our organic chemistry PostDoc, interjects while we are talking.
Sailaja: Mausam, I am going for Mass Spec. Are you coming?
Me: Yeah, yeah! I have to go now.
The Boss: OK, good. Sailaja, do you have anything to talk at all, science?
Sailaja: No, we are going for Mass Spec.
11 AM
Sailaja and I are walking to the Mass Spec Facility one floor above our lab.
Me: Thank you Sailaja for rescuing me from excruciating pain of almost four Kubys. By the way, I do not have any sample, you know, right?
Sailaja: I know. Don't worry. I will teach you how to operate the machine today.
Me: This a great way to rescue someone from onslaught of the boss.
Sailaja: Yeah, we do apply this technique in our lab often.
Me: We are, now, highly evolved animal.
Scene 1, Act 2
12 PM, lunch at the lobby area where we discuss guns, gluten free food, entrepreneurial endeavors and above all, influence of Kuby on our lives, in general.
Karthik: I bought a business last weekend. It cost me only $2000. I am writing programs to bring the business online.
Vy (completely indifferent to the ecology outside her self): I went to a party last weekend and drank vodka. Some Korean girls got drunk and removed their clothes.
Me: That's nice, invite me to such parties next time.
April: I was in Las Vegas last weekend with my grandma.
Me: Your grandma in Las Vegas? How old is she?
April: She is 82 and still enjoys alcohol and gambling. She is going to LV each year since 1970. I was not born then.
Me: Kudos! She has some lust for life.
Maritza is our first year grad student with two kids. She was air force guard before joining grad school.
Maritza: Aam, I slept only three hours last night.
Me: What did you do? Sell drugs at night?
Maritza: Noooooo, I cooked, cleaned, did laundry, gave kids bath.
Vy: Its amazing how you do these stuff and still have time for research. Ah! my boyfriend doesn't want to marry me. I would rather marry a Mormon and make babies.
Maritza: I love research, but, I hate stupid course-work.
In the meantime, I am thinking to ask Karthik about his business as it is his "latest" passion
Me: Karthik, lets make some money this weekend. I am gonna cook and you are the salesperson. We will split our profit 50/50
Karthik: We have to cook food in a kitchen approved by the food inspectors and it is going to be very difficult.
Me: You are the businessman and you can figure out anything.
Vy is making some crunchy sound while eating and April, Maritza and Caitlin are looking at her with utmost interest.
Caitlin: How are your classes, Maritza?
Maritza: I hate them. We covered only two slides in entire 45 min and Janis Lou was talking how her husband wanted her to run with him for moral support. She would do everything to get attention of guys. When a pencil fell on the floor, all guys were running to pick it up. It was disgusting.
Vy visibly expressed her admiration to Janis
Vy: She has very hot body.
Me: Vy, please do not mention the word "body".
April: You do not need to be here if you get the job you have applied to. (April told referring to Maritza)
Suddenly, the boss dashes and interjects during our lunch hour
The Boss: Vy, Vyyyyy
Vy: yes!
The Boss: I have something to talk about, now.
Vy: OK
Both went to the hallway to have a "secret" conversation.
Scene 2, Act 1
1 PM-3 PM
Me: Maritza, you look ravishing today.
Maritza: Aam, I used to be hot in high school. And, there were a lot of dating offers. There was this professor, an old hag and he wanted to date me.
Me: Why? Young people did not find you attractive?
Vy interjects
Vy: Maritza is very hot even now.
Martiza: Oh Vy, I ordered this top for me from ebay, but, it does no fit me. I have brought this for you. You can try and if fits, you can keep it.
Vy: Aww! it looks very sexy. I will try it tonight and let you know. Thank you, Maritza.
Maritza: I would have kept it, but, it is small for me.
I have started to run column in my hood and butterflies all around my ears. And now, April joins the conversation from the other room.
April: What is this?
Maritza: This is a top I bought from ebay. (well, I call it a bra!) This fits neither me nor Vy. Do you want to try?
April: Yeah, sure.
Maritza: Hey Vy, if you are looking for affordable lingerie, you should try www.adoreme.com
Vy is instantly typing on her computer.
Vy: Oh, this is good.
Me: Vy, can I see?
Vy: These are ladies stuff.
Me: Right, I thought you were discussing about guys. Maritza is spreading soft porn in the lab.
Maritza: Heyyyy!!
In an instant, the door opens and The Boss comes in. Everybody changes the subject to random science, which never make any sense.
Maritza: Yeah, I am trying to conjugate oligosaccharide with AMAC, but, it has not worked.
Vy: Did you add catalytic amount of acid?
Maritza: I tried everything, but, I could not see the desired peak in LC-MS
April leaves to the other side of the lab and the Boss follows her. I overhear him.
The Boss: Do you have anything to talk at all?
April: Nope.
The Boss: Do you know the activity of the enzyme?
April: I told you that we would not know about it until tomorrow.
The Boss: OK, do you have anything else to talk about?
April: Nope
Now, the boss rushes into our side of the lab and stands beside Maritza.
The Boss: Maritza, anything you want to talk briefly?
Maritza: Yeah, the Mass Spec is broken.
The Boss: Again? So, have you called the Brucker?
Maritza: Yeah, they are trying to fix it online. We will know by this afternoon.
The Boss: Brucker guys are professional. But, I need to sit down on top of Agilent guys to make them fix our HPLCs. What to do? Ah, Ah, Cait....Cait.... Maritza?
Maritza: I have sent the data to Fusan. She called this morning at 6 AM.
The Boss: Oh, my God! You know, she is under tremendous pressure.
Maritza: She wants me to repeat LC-MS for a few samples and the machine is broken now. It is very frustrating.
The Boss: Hang on there, Maritza. At the end of every road there is a tunnel.
Maritza: What?
Now, the boss thought about what he just said.
The Boss: No, it makes sense, I am sticking with it.
Maritza: Anyway.
The Boss: Everything is okay, Maritza?
Maritza: Aam, yeah!
The Boss: Good.
As the boss has started to go towards the door, he comes back towards me. I am working on my column chromatography intently and Karthik is taking some enzymes out of the box from the -80 degree freezer behind my back. The boss looks at both of us and starts.
The Boss: O Karthik, what to do? I have realized just now that I have a lecture to give in the training camp. It is two hours lecture on sialic acid. Do you have any interesting article?
Karthik: No
The Boss: Okay, I will figure out. Mausam, do you have any article on sialic acid?
Me: No, I do not.
Scene 2, Act 2
3PM-5PM
I'm done with column purification of my compound while tolerating the lingerie conversation and amazing Boss' vapor spray from half a foot distance. I am heading towards the rotavap in the other room to evaporate hexane/ethyl acetate mixture. Karthik has switched off the lights in that room so that he can work in doxorubicin-polysaccharide conjugates. The boss is singing his gospel in darkness.
The Boss: I do not care about the impact factor of the journals. The work should be novel and you should be happy with your work. I have seen a lot of great scientists, like Nobel laureates who are fucked up. I created the whole field of enzymatic synthesis and some people do not even cite my work. That's fine with me. It is not the number of citations, but, total number of downloads of your paper which is the most important.
Karthik: I see.
The Boss: I sent my paper to science and they took one year to reject me. The reason for rejection was that the paper was too long. Ten years later, Bob has published a paper on the same work I did. Where is the novelty? This is the politics of paper publishing.
The Boss: You have to work hard, eat good food and exercise. And, success is the time you spent on your bench divided by the time you spent on your computer. I used to work 80-90h a week when in grad school and 120-130h a week during PostDoc. I did not have great relation with my PhD adviser, but, the day defended my thesis, he told to the audience that I was the only PhD student who was hard on myself and was the most hard working. So, tell me how many students got training in his lab?
Karthik: I do not know.
The Boss: About 40 PhD students and 60-70 PostDocs. However, my PostDoc adviser had huge respect for me. He went to India all the way from Boston on my wedding day. I was overwhelmed. Do you have anything to talk at all?
Karthik: No
Once done with evaporation of solvent, I'm going to place the compound under vacuum on the Chemistry side.
Me: Maritza, you know that we have a brand new definition of success.
Maritza: I have heard that. I would like to modify it. Success is the (time you spend on bench minus time you spent on your computer)/time your boss talks with you
Me: That's great. I call it The Boss-Maritza Theory. Yes, now, it sounds kinda Higgs-Boson.
Maritza: he he, I have to go now. I have to do the stupid home-work and cook food. I will be back at night.
Sailaja: Why do you come back at night? Just do whatever you have to do; relax!
Maritza: No, I have to work on the samples from the Arkansas lady. I will be ready when Mass Spec is fixed.
Me: Maritza, lets develop a new reaction, a chemiluminescent reaction which is bioorthogonal
Maritza: Sure, after my exams.
Scene 2, Act 3
5PM-7PM
The compound is under vacuum for NMR analysis and I am reading some papers on my computer contributing to my "success ratio". And as usual, the boss walks in again.
The Boss: O Mausam, what to do? I am thinking if I should relocate my lab to somewhere else. I have a few offers. What do you think?
Me: If you get offer from Boston or California, you should take it.
The Boss: I am considering all the options very carefully. I am not interested in MIT as people are brutal, arrogant there. I am happy here. The mountains in Salt Lake have humbled me. Before coming here for interview, I was not sure about the city. But, when I came, the mountains reminded me how small we were.
Me: Nice
The Boss: How is your glycopolymer mimetic project going?
Me: pretty good. I am trying to optimize the Mitsunobu reaction. The reported reaction did not work. So, I had to find an alternative. It seems to work now. We will see.
The Boss: The reported reaction did not work at all?
Me: Nope. It is interesting that its Laura's work which I could not reproduce
The Boss: I have seen a lot of researchers who just produce papers which are craps. We had much smarter scientists 30-40 years ago than now.
Me: Yeah, German chemist Georg Wittig reported cyclooctyne "click" chemistry with azide in 1960. This has become bioorthogonal chemistry now. It seems that our generation is trying to modify the science which has already been done.
The Boss: I think its sialic acid in human milk, which has been shown to cross the blood-brain barrier of postnatal child implicating significant role in learning and memory. The old generation was breast fed which, in turn, made smart scientists. Now, we have formula milk.
Me: May be, I have to go for NMR
The Boss: Okay
It is almost 7PM and I am analyzing NMR of the compound that I purified. Oh snap! it is the starting material that I have recovered. Oh well, that means I have to live another day to try another method to synthesize the target molecule. I JUST LOVE SCIENCE!
