SAME14 conference Uppsala

Second conference on Aquatic Microbial Ecology, was held last in Uppsala this week.
It was my first opportunity to present my science so far and reap the fruits of my hard lab work these past three weeks.

Most of the presented work during the conference was in the form of oral presentations in front of all participants. Most of it was very interesting, but since the conference wasn't exclusively marine, then some freshwater work was a bit hard to relate to.
As a whole, the conference was heavy on metagenomics and genome sequence approaches, which is super cool, but also difficult to follow sometimes. I will most likely do some genomics of my own further down the road, so I tried to stay focused during all talks. One of the most interesting talks on the topic however, was actually one with hard criticism against how the massive data derived from metagenomics is handled and the lack of consistency between studies. Most often what is presented and compared in a metagenomics study are the different OTU's (Operational Taxonomic Unit) acquired from the data. Part of the criticism against the use of OTU's was that they are difficult to define and usually pre-determined by the researchers of each individual study, meaning that the term OTU can have a wide variety of meanings. They are therefore impossible to compare in a larger context between studies. It is also difficult to assess what the massive dataset from metagenomics actually tell us, where OTU's hardly help.

As of now, I have no idea how to approach this issue, but I'm sure things will be more clear down the road. There was also a metagenomics study presented during the conference where they actually didn't use OUT's.

The other big part of the work presented at the conference was in the form of four poster sessions. It was here that I presented my work. It is a very limited format, much more so than oral presentations even though they had to be no more than 12 min long.
Imagine squeezing in your research on 140x100 cm, knowing that most people won't read a single line of what you've written. This calls for some serious presentation skills where the pictures, graphics and plotted statistics have to tell most, if not all, of your story all by themselves.
In addition to the poster I also had two shots at a speed talk (30 sec) in front of a limited crowd. This was probably among the hardest kind of oral presentation I've ever done. 30 seconds is an extremely short time when you have so much to say. Even though I wrote and practiced my talk, nervousness got the better of me the first time around, but I quickly got to redo the talk and redeem myself.
All in all I was very satisfied with my poster presentation and I really loved to communicate my research and answer a lot of questions from other curious scientists.

I also attended a workshop on communication and outreach during our "day off", which turned out to be a lot more informative and interesting than I thought.
The whole point was to further our skills in reaching out with our research to the broader public. Try to make science a topic of discussion and an interest, not just among scientists of respective fields. Some fields like astronomy have already come a long way with their outreach, but biology has a long way to go.
I was mostly interested in deepening my knowledge on online outreach as to reach as much people as possible. Internet is a powerful tool if you know how to use it, and the take home message I got is that it is mostly about finding and using several channels (of the right topic) to convey my message down the line.
By that said I have now done something I told myself I would never do: I got myself a Twitter account. #MStenegren #MarineBiology.

A student's guide to increased lab work efficiency

Laboratory work has started in earnest and it can sometimes be intimidating business, especially if previous experience is rather insufficient. It can also be horribly messy if taken too lightly. However, it should also be fun and rewarding, considering that you do it for most of the workday. Below follow some of my thoughts and guidelines on the subject in my new molecular lab.

1. Use your PPE

Photo credit: UCSF

This should be the first thing on your mind before starting your work in a lab, regardless of what kind of methodology you will use. What personal protection equipment do you need? Gloves, labcoat, safety glasses? What material should they be? If you reach the conclusion that no PPE is needed for your protection then consider if your samples need protection from you, which is another function of PPE. Finally, if you don't have your own PPE, go and get it. Now. As in right now!

2. Keep it tidy

No one likes working in a chaotic environment where things are randomly lying around everywhere, obstructing workplaces and posing a risk, not only to the quality of your science, but to your safety. This is your responsibility. Everything should have its place. Put it back and take out the garbage. And for the love of science, don't fill the place up with stuff you don't really need at this time.

3. Plan ahead

Image credit: Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig

What are you going to do, how will you do it and what do you need? I find following a protocol the best way of staying organized in the lab. Unless you're awesome at remembering details or you have plenty of experience with a certain method, then going
through a protocol on the method of the day will save you a lot of unwanted surprises, tediously running back and forth and most importantly, time. Assemble your lab bench with what you need before you start. The smoother your work goes the better for both your schedule, your samples and your sanity.

4. Change gloves

Just because you're wearing gloves it doesn't mean that you're sterile or even clean. If you work with sensitive samples or methods, change your gloves regularly. In general, have you left your lab with gloves on (for some good reason), change when you get back. Did you have to rummage around in a dark corner of your lab to help a colleague find a certain something, change your gloves. It could also help to actually write "Change gloves" as a strategic bullet point in a lab protocol, i.e. when working with standards.
If you work with hazardous chemicals or materials then just switching your workplace within your own lab is call enough for a change of gloves. Wiping down a lab contaminated with radioactivity because someone forgot to change gloves when switching benches is no fun. No fun at all.
Be mindful. In the end it is your health on the line. Also, it is rather embarrassing to explain why you got gut bacteria in your cultures, because then you're obviously not washing your hands either.

5. No food, drinks or mobile phones

This might seem obvious to most people, but I've actually run across more than one coffee machine happily sitting on a random bench in a lab. In the end I guess it's up to each and every researcher responsible for the lab in particular, whether or not their science or health will be affected by preparing and consuming hot beverages in the lab. In my opinion you do science in the lab and drink coffee in the lunch room. Period.
When it comes to mobile phones, unless you're expecting an important call, leave it in your office. One slide of thought and you'll find yourself grasping your frantically vibrating mobile phone with your gloved hand, possibly contaminating your gloves and/or your mobile phone. Hopefully, this will never be the case, but then you will likely either interrupt your work or be distracted wondering who called, for the rest of the day.

6. Use alcohol

It's a great chemical to keep things clean and decrease the risk of contaminants. Wipe down not just your benches but also your instruments and other equipment that you can't put in an autoclave. On a side note; please refrain from drinking molecular grade alcohol during work hours, it gets you drunk to boot and you'll make a fool out of yourself. It's not really for drinking, but you know, scientists all have their stories.

7. Relax

When stepping into your lab you should feel at ease. Don't stress out. It will affect your performance and ultimately your science negatively. We all make mistakes, but mistakes tend to be more frequent when you're stressed. Plan ahead, ask for help, put on some music, do whatever you need to make your lab work a somewhat relaxing endeavour.

8. Be a mad scientist

Image credit: CKEC

Most people enjoy field work the most and that is usually what a personal scientific story is about. There's not much fun or interesting in describing your late "pipetting-nights" in the lab for neither colleagues or friends outside of academia.
However, lab work is a major part of what most science is, and considering that you will spend most of your work hours in the lab, it should be fun. Spice it up a little and you'll even have a decent story to tell. As long as you're doing good science and staying safe, make things smoke, pop, bubble, change color or glow. It's more fun than it sounds and usually the chemistry/science behind it is really interesting.

9. Take a break

Too much of the good stuff will make even the most passionate of researchers tired. Just like reading a book for too long, your brain will ultimately switch to autopilot. The problem in the lab though is that it's not as easy as flipping the previous page if you missed to register the last few lines. If you lose your focus you could also lose the last hour of work, or worse, precious samples.
When you start feeling tired, have a coffee break and some fresh air, go for a walk or just switch your current task for a while. If you can't just leave your work like that, then plan ahead. I usually hit the gym halfway through the day.

10. Take notes

It doesn't matter how good a memory you have, you will never remember every little detail that comes up while you are working on your different methods. It might just be numbers for your samples or deviations in your protocol which at the time might feel trivial. However, further down the road when you want to look up what you actually did or there are some funny oddities in your results that you need to interpret, your lab notes will be gold. Keep a laboratory journal. One of the best investments you'll ever make.

11. Know your field of action

Fundamentally it's not much practical work in this point. It is more about reading literature and science papers until your eyes roll out of their sockets and your brain melts. Which won't happen anytime soon so keep reading. So when you've plowed
through a decent amount of text, directly or indirectly related to your subject, you will have an easier time navigating and understanding any methodology that comes your way. Because it is important that you know what you're doing, but it is equally important to know why you're doing it. So if you find yourself not knowing enough, ask questions and look it up. Once you're the expert on what you're doing you can perhaps start tweaking and improving your work and approach a problem or hypothesis in a whole new way.

12. Practice makes perfect

There's no such thing as perfect science. There will always be known and unknown biases constraining your research. The only thing you can do is try to mitigate them as best you can with the various tools available to you. Either way, you can still become a jedi master of pipetting and thereby rule out one possible source of bias. The more you practice those nimble hands the better, and that goes for all your work in the lab, regardless of what it is. Embrace your passion but be aware of the dark side of bias.

13. Sort and recycle your waste

After a long day in the lab this is for no other reason than to lighten your bad conscious over the mountain of plastic waste you just accumulated for no other reason than extracting a tiny amount of DNA. This is certainly a conflict of interest for environmental scientists and biologists where furthering the research of understanding and better protecting our environment you produce so much waste, not just plastics. Hazardous chemicals for example, need to be properly disposed of as not to leak out in the environment. Pat yourself on the back, our planet would too if it could.

14. Put on some epic music

Everything you do in the lab will feel soo much cooler with some epic music filling the room. There's a possible major scientific discovery every day when listening to epic music, and it feels good. Get inspired and progress with style. Even pipetting feels epic when listening to a pompous orchestral piece.

Back to work

Vacation is officially over for this summer, if you can even call it a summer after experiencing the coldest month of July since I can't even remember. At least it was nice to be home with my family.

Now it's time for me to get organized in the new building, my new office and my new lab after the move (or merge) of the institution into a newly built, but not yet finished, building on Stockholm University campus.

I have loads to do, specially in the lab, and most people are still on vacation, which is crappy cause I need some assistance of the techs. I don't even have a key to my office yet! My new computer is breaking down on me too! Great timing. I guess I'm calling the tech support NOW!

Living with type 1 diabetes!

I've been thinking about this blog post for a while now, but never really been sure as to if I should really write it and where (if I did) I should post it. Secondly there's also the decision whether to write it in English or in Swedish.

Stay active, stay strong, stay alive.

What I will tell you about ultimately concerns more than just me. More than just my son and family. More than just Sweden. Therefore I will write it in English and I will post it on my blog where I intended to write posts related to my science and experiences in the field. However, I would be lying if I said that none of this affects me both on a personal and professional level.

It is important that you know that my purpose with this post is purely to enlighten and give my views on the everyday life, the challenges, the outlook and the science of one of the the biggest, the quickest emerging and sadly also most underrated diseases in the western world. This is a tiny window into the life of my family and my son (and most likely other families battling type 1 diabetes), diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (Diabetes mellitus Type 1 - or just DM1). There are many details on diabetes that I will deliberately leave out, so please, for further reading internet is your best friend. Finally, I would very much appreciate if you, as a reader of this blog, would help me spread the word for the benefit of all the current and future children and adolescents in the world with the same diagnose.

What is type 1 diabetes?

First of all I would like to make a clear statement on the difference between type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Unfortunately media often refers to the disease as only diabetes, as if type 1 and type 2 were basically the same disease afflicting different age-groups. This couldn't possibly be further from the truth and it is a major driver of much prejudice against type 1 diabetes (most commonly afflicting children). The only thing the two have in common apart from the the name is that the body of the afflicted person can't produce enough of the hormone insulin, responsible for feeding our cells with sugar transported with our blood (thus keeping blood sugar on a healthy level), or lacks production altogether.
Type 1 diabetes is fundamentally different in the fact that it is (as of now) an irreversible autoimmune disease which current research propose is both genetically inherited (many genes involved which can be both dominant and recessive) and triggered by an environmental factor (possibly a common viral infection). In difference to type 2 diabetes there's therefore no way to prevent or mitigate the onset of type 1 diabetes by way of i.e healthier living. Developing type 1 diabetes basically means that you're the wrong genetical composition at the wrong place and time. Unlucky, right?
Autoimmune means that the own immune system somehow has been triggered to unrelentingly attack the insulin producing beta-cells in the pancreas, ultimately fully deactivating their ability to produce the essential insulin, which is the only hormone of its kind with the function of decreasing blood sugar (i.e both cortisol and adrenalin are hormones that increase blood sugar by stimulating the liver to release glucose).
Because of this lack of insulin, the afflicted person's only option is dependency on an outside source of insulin by injections, most commonly by use of needles or the rising technological tool, the insulin pump.

Portable "real-time" blood sugar monitoring with a six meter range.

In spite of advanced technological tools and rapid advances in scientific understanding, type 1 diabetes is a widespread and deadly disease which also (at least) doubles the risk of a "premature" death no matter how well it is treated. It is a constant battle of balance of blood sugar, something that the insulin pump has helped a lot to manage but still is nowhere near as effective as the own body. High blood sugar may lead to cell starvation (if insulin is lacking) and ketoacidosis (acidifying the blood and body) and further down the road a range of complications with function of bodily organs, especially kidneys and heart. On the other hand, low blood sugar may lead to insulin induced coma and death.

Current status and living with DM1

Type 1 Diabetes has an estimated 80.000 new cases worldwide each year, while the total number of people with the diagnose is unknown. It has also been observed to increase in magnitude by about 3 % per year in recent years. Looking at diabetes as a whole (both type 1 and 2) an estimated number of 387 million people worldwide has one of the two diseases (8 % of the world's population) and up to 4.9 million people die each year as a direct result of diabetes.
External insulin dependence (type 1) is a constant management of one's blood sugar which then of course, independent of treatment tools, requires plenty of medical consumables, to an estimated cost of $875 per month per diabetic (in the USA). You do the rest of the math.

Insulin pump consumables which are replaced every third day.

With that said, type 1 diabetes is a taxing disease to treat, with a never-ending learning curve which sometimes feel steep and at other times leave parents and medical personnel alike baffled. Either way, it is a constant home treatment which demand regular (mostly not medically trained) parents to take full responsibility for a deadly disease, where death as a result of unintentional mistreatment is a very real possibility. It is a very intimidating thought. At the same time the ultimate goal for all parents is to, with time, foster independent children. How much more difficult is that scenario for both parents and children when the fledgling leaves the nest for the first time carrying with him/her the responsibility of a deadly disease.
Parents have to first learn and then teach how to monitor blood sugar, using needles and a small computer. Continuous  monitoring with less need for needles is also possible if the treatment is by insulin pump but it still needs to be calibrated at least two times a day. Secondly, the correct insulin need at any given time (mostly for meals, if treatment is by pump) needs to be calculated and administered (by needles or pump). Thirdly, unexpectedly and/or unexplained high or low levels of blood sugar has to be dealt with. Every case of diabetes is as unique as the afflicted individual and is a highly personal story. Parents will often refer to it as an additional child to care for. That gives an estimate of the level of attention it requires. 24 hours a day, every day, for the rest of their lives.
The harsh reality is that, as of today, there's no cure for type 1 diabetes.

Research on DM1

In my molecular lab.

So what does science say? There is plenty of research being conducted around the world with different focus. Some research teams are focused on the demography of type 1 diabetes for a better understanding of the disease and possible prevention methods. There are hopes of developing a kind of vaccine for type 1 diabetes which would decrease or even mitigate the T-cells of the immune system's sensitivity to the insulin producing beta-cells in the pancreas. Secondly, as stated previously, this is also a billion dollar industry where companies make huge profits on providing new technology for rather hefty (in my opinion) prices. This is certainly a quickly developing industry where the aim is to make life easier for diabetics. The current "flagship-to-be" in this industry is the "virtual pancreas" which is very much like the current insulin pump but more compact, with a more advanced algorithm for automatically dispensing insulin as a reaction to increasing blood sugar (the current insulin pumps need to be configured and much of the insulin dispensing is by manual input) and being directly attached to the bodily systems by means of surgery.
However, as you can see, this is by no means a cure to the disease.
This is where the third field of type 1 diabetes research comes in, one which has been pioneered by Swedish researchers in Uppsala and Lund.
This research focuses on curing type 1 diabetes and the last few year's initial medical trials on human patients have shown great promise. Personally, I wouldn't go as far as calling it a major breakthrough, but the researchers are well on their way to countering one of the major issues of any treatment of the cause of the disease as well as restoring beta-cell activity and function. The T-cells of the immune system. They propose to use special cells from the own bone marrow to ward off the aggressive T-cells. There's also a possibility of shielding the beta-cells with reactive oxygen. The use of bone marrow proved successful in at least one medical trial where new type 1 diabetes patients showed full recovery of beta-cell function, thus external insulin independence, within a year after the study's conclusion. However, there are some drawbacks to consider.
This is only one case and it has not been replicated since.
Proper evaluation will take years and it is not known if the renewed beta-cell function is time limited. As an initial substitute for a cure I would argue that a major treatment session every 5 years (or whatever it might be in a worst case scenario) is better than the technological alternative.
It was only conducted on newly discovered diabetes, therefore we don't know if the same treatment will work after years with the disease. There is some hope in this reasoning though, since another team of researchers has shown that the T-cells don't, as previously thought, destroy the insulin producing beta-cells, but rather deactivate or suppress them. A course of events that can be reversed.

The disease, the onset and the society for a young diabetic

Tools for measuring blood sugar.

My personal opinions on type 1 diabetes in general and my life in specific living with the disease, are many and colorful even after just 7 months after the initial shock of my son being diagnosed with it. I think most people having to face the reality of type 1 diabetes go through a phase of denial before the ultimate acceptance. Same was true for me, but to be honest, as a parent and a scientist I think that I, at that point, at least owed it to my son to thoroughly investigate type 1 diabetes, its causes, method of diagnosis and possible explanations. The most unlucky coincidence was that he at the time had inhalation spray for child asthma which is known to increase blood sugar. We hoped for dear life that he would get better within a few weeks, but of course that never happened.
So this was where our journey, with my son, living as a healthy diabetic started, all the while looking to science for answers and hopes of a better life in the future. That, however, is no excuse to not live life to the fullest here and now, which I think is very important both for him and for us. Diabetes shouldn't govern our lives, then we aren't doing a good enough parental job, but rather that we plan and buffer for it. The difficulty in this rhetoric and way of living with type 1 diabetes is the constant ignorance and prejudice of the society (most of it anyway). Many times children with type 1 diabetes are excluded or denied participating in activities solely because of ignorance or fear derived of ignorance on involved adults part. All I ask is for children to be able to be children no matter their conditions, but to break that barrier in case of type 1 diabetes society in general, and people working with children in particular, need to be enlightened on what it is and how it is handled in daily life.
Personally I haven't had this argument yet, but I know that it will come soon enough, and I know it will be an essential one no matter the outcome. Equality is not for everyone when it requires a bit of extra time and effort, because nothing today is free. Though I am thankful that we, in Sweden at least, doesn't have to pay for the life-long treatment of type 1 diabetes.
On the other hand I'm concerned that the billion dollar industry that this constant treatment is, will hamper the progress of the true goal in this story, which is a cure. We have probably all heard the rumors about oil companies that buy and shut down projects for developing alternative fuels.
Further, the ignorance of type 1 diabetes is leading to insufficient funding in terms of charity foundations for research. As a scientist I know that every little penny counts but the neglect of type 1 diabetes is no petty sum. I don't want to discredit child cancer, which also is a terrible disease that still not every child recovers from, but purely for comparison, in Sweden, the foundation of child cancer receives about 208 million SEK yearly, while the child diabetes foundation only receives 8 million SEK yearly. I can't speak for the medical research field but for me as a marine biologist 10 million SEK will fund a rather extensive research project for a small team of scientists for several years. 200 million SEK is a lot of money in this context.

Role models and the future

On clear and calm waters.

There are many examples of public figures in Sweden that have learned to master their type 1 diabetes and still be successful (and a role model), but many chose not to tell their story and many yet are never confirmed cases. Why this is I will probably never know, but I guess that type 1 diabetes, being a disease, is frowned upon. It is a brand that people will get and it is a brand that of course never will further a career. It would be a purely altruistic act, an important one that I wished that more public figures would do to inspire our young and enlighten our ignorant.
I will keep supporting my son in his decisions, in life, and spur him on where needed. Because if there is something that I will teach him, then it is definitely that living as a healthy diabetic should never be a limitation of ones dreams and goals, but if anything, merely a speed bump in the road.
So speaking about myself, I'm now pondering where this road will take us. I'm sure it will be a good place in the end, but what will that end look like.
I'm a scientist and I'm passionate about my field, but it has crossed my mind on more than one occasion if my future instead lies in diabetes research rather than marine biology. It is not as easy as that though, since I've learned how our oceanic systems work, not our bodily systems. There's a fundamental difference although it is biology, and there will probably be plenty of pitfalls for a marine biologist. But how would you start to explain to your growing son why daddy didn't use his research to at least attempt to find a cure?

References:

Out of convenience I pulled most of the above numbers and facts from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus and linked pages.
Also, check out the first successful medical trial on curing type 1 diabetes in this paper:
PO. Carlsson, E. Schwarcz, O. Korsgren, and K. Le Blanc. Preserved b-Cell Function in
Type 1 Diabetes by Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Diabetes Volume 64, February 2015.
If you can't access it, contact me and I'm happy to share it with you.

Comment, share and donate to bring hope of a better future, hopefully without type 1 diabetes!

Future endeavours

Before my flight on the very last day I had a few hours to spare. I chose to spend those hours at Pearl Harbour, which was a very interesting and humbling experience and I'm happy I went. So many details about the horrible WWII happenings at Pearl Harbour that I didn't know about.

After a terrible few flights (including a 17 hours involuntary stop in Salt Lake City due to an engine malfunction) I finally arrived back home with my family. Almost a full day late.
My plan was to be back at the lab in Stockholm before my supervisor leaves on summer vacation, which for obvious reasons didn't happen.
In this case it's great that my work is so flexible and I could show up later to get acquainted with the new lab and my new (empty) office. The new building which the department is moving into (kind of a physical merge) should have been mostly done by now, but no. This place is still a barren and somewhat messy construction site, and I have to step over construction workers on my way to the lab on the fourth floor. At least the lab is neatly set up already thanks to the rest of my group.

Officially I now have my first ever paid vacation. I never realised that I had all these perks doing my PhD in Sweden, but now I'm very grateful for it. Still I have tasks with deadlines approaching, but at least I can now spend some well earned time with my family after being gone for three months already this year. There is always more work to do, but for now it can wait.

So Sweden treated me with the best week of the summer so far when I got home, and now it's raining again. It was a nice feeling to be back, enjoying a beer in the sun, going for a swim, having a family barbecue and taking the kids outside. Hopefully July will be good (my vacation).

In August it is back to the lab again with lots of practical lab work (DNA-extraction and qPCR) to accumulate much needed data, analyse that data and put together an "award-winning" poster for the SAME conference in Uppsala, 23rd of August. So if you're going to that conference I'll see you there, specially during the poster presentations.
In addition to the conference I have plenty of future endeavours during the coming autumn. I will finally attend the introductory course on research studies in biology, which also is the first course in pedagogics which will make me eligible to teach on undergraduate courses. That is also exactly what I will do right after. One or two weeks (depending on the number of applicants) of assisting on a basic course at the Stockholm University field station Tovetorp.
Finally I also have another deadline on a writing assignment, but for now I'm fully committed to my vacation.
Thanks, have a nice summer and stay tuned in late summer!

Farewell gala at Waikiki Aquarium

At this very moment I'm well on my way back home to Sweden, but still have a long way to go with a total flight time of 20 hours. I'm getting back to reality soon enough, well that's kind of how it feels after these five amazing weeks at C-MORE, Honolulu. Thankfully I will only have a few days back at work in Stockholm before I go on summer vacation for four weeks, making up for lost time with my family these past 6 months. It will be good.

So citing fellow course participant Michael Henson's Facebook post, "it feels surreal" that the course is over and a very awkward feeling saying goodbye to all these great people that I basically have spent every single day with for the past five weeks. Needless to say, it was a great bunch of people, students and faculty alike. I'm sure I will see most of them again sometime and there might even be opportunities for collaboration. To cite David Karl (the C-MORE director); "science is greater than any one individual", the new generation of scientists (including me) goes down a path of sharing knowledge to further our research to the benefit of all. That's exactly what Dave recognises and perhaps this is one of the contributing factors to why humanity has never seen a greater rate of progress in all fields and aspects. 30 years ago most methodologies and technologies (perhaps even including theories to some extent) never saw much change. Today, in 2015, and with the increasing development of the newly implemented metagenomic tools, we are looking at ever improving methods and new discoveries almost on a yearly basis. It is a staggering development which we all should be proud of and which I'm privileged to be part of.
Now I'm starting to sound like Dave, haha!

Anyway, the final day at C-MORE entailed a two hour long presentation which we students at the course had frantically put together the night before by fusing our individual stories from the data analyses to tell a coherent story of station ALOHA for all people interested (the presentation was open to the public). The lecture hall was almost filled up to the last seat which was really cool, and what was even cooler was that we even had the university dean and a US national science board member among the audience (in addition to all the renowned faculty of C-MORE, David Karl included).
I contributed with a small, but oh so important, story (which I of course told the audience) of nitrogen fixation at station ALOHA. Using metagenomics I wanted to address a few different questions on the subject; What organisms fix nitrogen at station ALOHA? At what depth do they do that? And finally, in what size fraction is most of the nitrogen fixation occurring? After successfully answering my questions I also used chemical and physical data profiles, plotted for comparison, to attempt to answer why I got these results.
In short (which was my conclusion slide during my part of the presentation) I found that the unicellular cyanobacteria and obligate symbiont, UCYN-A, was dominating nitrogen fixation at this time of year at station ALOHA. I also found that the relative abundance of genes for nitrogen fixation (nif-H, which I assumed to be a proxy for actual nitrogen fixation) was highest at the surface and decreased with depth.

The evening was spent at Waikiki Aquarium by the beach which was a farewell gala for us summer course students. All of C-MORE (and more) were invited and I had a great evening mingling with all the faculty a final time as well as hanging out with the rest of the students. Thanks Dave for the talk, the introductions to the rest of the renowned people attending and all the praise (weather it is actually true or not, you're a true inspiration).
I must say that it was a rather emotional evening which Mike set the bar for when he showed a self-made video compilation summing up the course (awesome job, Mike).
So at the end of our time at the Aquarium there were plenty of speeches of praise (specially by Dave), hugging and also a bit of crying. I wish the evening hadn't passed so quickly, but at least I had great concluding talks with everyone involved in the course.
Fittingly enough it just so happened that this very day was a regular day of fireworks at Waikiki. It really felt like it was just for us.
I'll see you soon again all the awesome people of C-MORE summer course 2015!

Now I'm going home with my head held high.

Short on time for final presentation

Just a quick update really. That's all I have time and energy for.
It has been an exhausting week of frantically analyzing and pursuing specific research questions on the samples, and ultimately data, that we pulled out from the cruise at station ALOHA.
I decided to investigate nitrogen fixation using metagenomics, since I'm an absolute beginner at metagenomics.
Tomorrow morning is the final (group)-presentation and there have been a few late nights. I'm probably looking at another one now.
That will be the end of the course, so when I'm done with that I can share my metagenomics work and findings in a bit more detail. Now I need to focus on getting everything right for tomorrow.
It will  be a big day tomorrow (presentation is open to the public). With that said, I leave you with a picture of an example of one step in the metagenomics workflow, for now.