Lab update!

Warning! This is a post for nerds! Continue reading at your own risk!

Since August 1st, 2011, I am running my own lab and so far it has been a very exciting, but also a very labor intensive time. I cannot believe it is already December; time just flew by! The first month I was just by myself and busy with preparing the lab, ordering equipment and reagents, writing grants, testing  spinning disc scopes, finishing a review and initiating collaborations. My postdoc Priyanka and the two students Anjana and Kee-Fong joined in September and October, respectively.
So far all of us were busy with cloning projects and apart from initial problems with recombineering, it went pretty smooth. Priyanka in particular recombineered up a storm and generated 12 constructs, which we started to inject last week. This is particularly noteworthy since nobody in the lab except me has experience with Drosophila and I have not done any injections in the last 6 years; thus, I dreaded the task! However, a postdoc from the Affolterlab refreshed my memory and the injection procedures went pretty smooth.
Also, we already published! Together with my former undergrad I crafted a review for Current Biology, and Priyanka and I just submitted a dispatch for the same journal.

 Now, we are eagerly awaiting the delivery of our spinning disc system (...my grant money is melting like butter in the sun...)! The room is ready and so are many fly lines!

Currently, I am pretty happy how things are going. Both my students are working hard and my postdoc in particular turned out to be a very hard working, smart, motivated and determined scientist. It is also very rewarding to see that these individual players start to form a team.

Although I trained many undergrads during my time in Oregon, nothing prepared me for the real thing! My new collaborator at the MPI in Dresden suggested the following book: "At the helm, leading your laboratory by Kathy Barker". It is comforting to know that most rookie PI's (even the highly decorated junior PIs at the Max Planck institute) are battling with the same worries, doubts and problems.
However, these are extremely exciting times and I have never been more motivated than now.

Also, I have been received pretty warmly at the Biozentrum. My colleagues are supportive and since I am not on a tenure-track position, I am only marginally bothered with teaching (my first lecture is next week...) and can fully focus on the science. However, since my grant will run out in 4 years, I have to start looking for a permanent position pretty soon.

So, basically all there is left to do is to generate some data...