samsamsam

This post aims to inform/educate my dear readers as to what exactly I am doing in Karolinska Institute for my PhD project.
Yes, I am doing my PhD, which means after 4 years of toiling under fluorescent 24 hour lights, I get Permanent Head Damage and would somewhat increase my payscale from peanuts to Pay Him Donuts. But I’m sure I’ll get through alright since I’m a Pretty Honest Dude.
‘nuf crap.
I am on a doctorate program by research at the Center for Infectious Medicine at KI (Q: you mean medicine is infectious? A: don’t ask me, I didn’t come up with that name). Research basically means to do experiments day and night for years until you find enough excuses to publish 2 journal articles. I have a few modules to take but its all mostly pass/fail grade and its of the FYI kind of course. At the end of the day, it’s the research that really matters.
I am working on NK cells, i.e. natural killer cells. This is a subset of white blood cells in the blood that can recognize and kill off tumor cells, virus infected cells, some bacteria and parasites. What the lab has found out so far is that some infants that lack these NK cells come down with repeated infections and many die from these infections that normally would only cause a healthy infant to fall sick for a few days. So my job is to find out if these infants have no NK cells or nonfunctional NK cells. Then, if there are NK cells, why are they not working. I will attempt to do this by two methods, firstly, by collecting and analyzing blood samples from sick infants from Europe and around the world. Using various methods, the blood will be tested for level of NK cells, and its activity. If NK population is low, the DNA will be checked for problems. If NK cell level is normal, the next step is to find out whats defective in the cell causing it to not function. So far I have had blood from Sweden, Spain, Italy, Qatar, Australia, and some small countries that I cant remember.
The second method is to study the different ligand receptors on NK cells. On these cell surface, there are many tiny things sticking out that are used to communicate from outside to inside of the cell or vice versa. Think of the cell surface as a huge control panel with thousands of switches. So we want to study which little protruding twig is responsible for what. Its like finding a needle in a haystack and then finding the thread that goes with that needle to make it functional. The first part has been done by previous students, who quite smartly, used a magnet. My part is the needle – thread joining part, which will take some nifty acrobatics.
So that is my project outline that I had tried to summarise in as layman term as possible. Of course I could go into detail but that would only benefit a tiny percentage of my readers.
The part I like best of this project is that it is clinical in that the results that I get is analysed and reported to the doctors. They can then make more informed choices in treating these infants. There was one recent case in which the lab tested the infant's blood some months back and recently the child went through bone marrow transplant. We got a second batch of blood to test and now it shows very normal response. Because of its direct relevance to the patients, I find my toil justifiable and rewarding.