Alone in silence
I stare at my samples
All lined up and ready to prove themselves
Like little timid soldiers.
Here is the trumpet, with its sharp and energetic sound
And here are the soldiers
Running blindly to their position.
As a human chain, they are the steps
Making the golden path
That leads to an undiscovered forest.
Bad email
Excited for a new email
I see you staning waiting in the folder
and hardly resists from opening you.
Sadly your length deprives me from the joy
and your tone makes my brain angry
as I read through the lines manipulation and frustration.
Adrenalin
Holding the worst of my pens,
a rush of adrenalin takes me
and the craziest of the experiments is designed.
Steps are simplified,
and pride in the elegance of the solution fills me
and brings a timid smile to my lips,
Has anybody seen me?
They will see the manuscript.
DNA evolution
Planning of mutations
Brings me back to childhood and playing with Lego.
Will this small brick be able to support the castle?
Will this extra arginine pimp this enzyme?
Mutagenesis plays by the rules of nature
And smiles at evolution,
Embarrassed by its small efforts
Towards lab-scale successes.
Evolution in vitro
The DNA is a evanescent drop
Of a water-like liquid
At the top of the eppy.
Stubborn and robust
It can stand there and watch the ages pass.
A minuscule change today
will change its meaning
Will give it a new purpose and a new life.
Possibilities are open once small changes are made.
Transformation of bacteria
Breathing slowly and deeply
I value every minute of my trip to work today.
This last day of summer
Will see bacterial transformation.
A new strain is created
and kept away from the outside world
In a cozy lab in warm and shaky hands.
Tip tapping
Letter by letter
I label the tubes with my precious DNA
And stare and my young fingers
That jump and dance
With click click and uh uh.
Popping eppies brings a laugh
to the girls in the lab
tip tapping by the centrifuge.
PhD
Research means being surrounded
by dozens of smart active people
That invade your territory
Behind your bench, your shaker, your drawer.
They constantly also invade your mind
Your assumptions, your projections, your life.
Growing with your experiments
You leave the door open to being changed
and to evolve into an adult
and intro a doctor at the same time.
Choices are tough
You can do it I in a blink,
Well and structured you can perform.
Your body however tells you no.
You mind will like it, it is a certain ego booster
But your inside is tired and wants a deeper reason
A social value and human contact.
What to choose? What is better?
You are not ready to say it out loud,
Waiting for that moment.
Sounds
Tip tip tip
Eppy Eppy Eppy
The sounds of a good day in the lab.
Origa-me boss
I fold and bend
Adapting to your wishes
Changing my project to for your strategy
Suggesting your strategy to for my project.
A swan, a rose, a snake
I transform and lose myself
Where did I go? Who am I?
You don’t care and I have to transform for a last time to be myself.
Innovate
Innovation is bitter and painful like acupuncture
But surprises you on your way
Bringing sunlight and excitement.
Imaging the many roads opening at your feet
And your first check
Adds a brilliant nuance to the repetitive
Mindless work in front of you today.
Doubts and dream taste the same today.
Marianne
Behind my screen
A little red-haired girl sits and calculates
The results of a decisive experiment.
Little smiles appear sometimes
together with the fast movements
of her hand.
An hectic Typing tells me she likes the risk
Of a complex high-potential experiment
And already tastes the sweet flavor of discovery.
I can
The story is finally here,
the results align and indicate the direction,
I will follow it with my research and my life.
Fearless and shy, proud and blushing,
my door is opening.
First apprenticeship day
I curiously stare the shiny bottles and the silver spoons
that on my bench eagerly lie.
Alone in the lab I wonder my future and my decisions,
everybody says I can do it,
I want to believe it for myself,
for my tomorrows,
for a easier life one day.
I thus push myself every single day
say yes when a no is reasonable
and lend a hand when tired I dream of home.
Unknown liquid in the lab
It suits in my bench
And makes me shiver
by staring at me
In its transparent glass bottle.
For days, for months, for year
I feared the day of its disposal.
It was bottled in a regular November day
That had left no memory
and added no value in my research,
Yet held on to the shelf
And is now a risky business.
The clear liquid in the bottle
Is unknown, old, and mysterious,
It tickles my curiosity and senses
Of touching or smelling
The forbidden drops.
Probably water, ignorance gives it the value of gold
And takes it finally away from me.
Success and me
Flipping in the chilly wind,
the leaf of success waves at me
and lays a shadow on my face.
Money, recognition, fame and awards
give a successful accent to life
and make you feel unique.
You are not, of course.
This success fades with the time
and the loss of memory in minds and electronics.
To have it always woth you,
success must be satisfaction, motivation and generosity.
Success is seeded in small acts, smiles and contacts
that need long winters to germinate and bloom.
The spring of success comes unannounced,
with the energy of a the sunshine and the green of clovers
moving a smile of epic dimensions.
SDS PAGE
Today I will tell the story
Of the protein lost in a gel.
Although very light-hearted,
She was forced to migrate
down down down.
When at rest,
She started to feel blue
And felt her run was over.
The single woman in the corridor
1. Keep Admiration inside–> avoid talking people how good they are, you are probably better
2. Face reality–> don’t avoid problems, recognize them and, if you cannot solve them, just wait
3. Keep moving even in hard times–> seed today and harvest(celebrate) tomorrow (new motto)
4. Be confident–> never say negative things about yourself, why would you anyway?
5. Keep silent but keep your hands and mind moving –>Â dropping little breadcrumbs towards your future.
Bad and good
Torn between hating the actions
And appreciating the person
I wonder why what makes a good person
Is so hard to identify.
I see a powerful beautiful woman
In charge of risky businesses
and with heavy on her shoulder
And yet her humanity clashes with her actions.
Work makes us bad people
As it hides our inner flame
Fearing humanity at the workplace?
Future plans
You run, you calculate,
You change your protocol
To add elegance to your experiment
And yet your voice is not heard.
Glittery shoes and colourful shirts
Cheer up your day
Give you a reason to smile
And fuel your inner motor
And Yet your effort is not valued.
What makes you comfortable
Is rare at work
And your vivid energy within faints
Day by day.
You cry and strive to imagine a future somewhere else
But is it really necessary to abandon your dream?
Testosterone-rich meeting
Why do I feel alone
When sitting in meetings
Had long been a mystery.
Curly and pretty,
Charming and over-achieving,
Meticulous and high-performing
No other woman is at the table
To share a smile
Giggle at huge error bars
Join efforts toward waved of testosterone.
This quiet my voice
Makes my feet shake
And frees my mind
To imagine other worlds
where I would feel comfortable
Raising my hands
Expressing my opinion
Asking for what I deserve.
Bus ride
I sit in the bus
Twenty minutes
Everyday dreaming of arriving to the lab
At the light’s speed.
Butterflies in my stomach
Reminds me of the experiment
that went on over night
And is waiting for me
Bubbling
Stirred
Blushing
Hot.
These are the Signs of a happy enzyme
in an active mood
I can’t wait to see.
PCRing
You say it is running
While you restlessly stand by the machine
that cycles and repeats elementary steps
That revolutionized biology few years ago.
As Stuck in a spinning wheel,
Hot and cold flashes alternate themselves
To make different enzymes at ease
And multiply little molecules with a precious message.
Coffee boosts discoveries
Millions of shiny balls
Bounce within my head
Drawing never-seen-before trajectories
Connecting points of questions
with faraway points of solutions.
Another sip sharpens the edges of the picture
And Injects energy into an excited system
In which the unsolved issued of today
Are paired with visionary reasonable answers.
A third sip raises the enthalpy
Enough to direct my hand on the paper
Drive the pen to visualize the solutions on the white background
And communicate the discovery
To enrich of a tiny bit the community.
Old samples shine new light
In the Chaos of My bench
I find an old sample
With its dated label and preserved content
Shines light on my old dreams
And unsolved mysteries
Of biology.
In May
few years ago
This was the key
The culprit of my living project
Deeming my success or failure.
It was hidden
Got dust and paler
Lost its value
But not to me.
It taught me a lesson
Opened a new direction
To my career and I opened the door to the unpredictable
And still live in its radiating shadow.
Conference energy
A conference room
brings your wildest scientific dreams in focus
While recharging your batteries.
That faint question mark in the back of your mind
Comes forward and expands
Into detailed defined questions
You will pursue
Tiptoeing
Step by step
once back at your desk.
Conference life
Sitting in the chilly room
Packed with senior profs and grey heads
I question my way and my judgment of s success.
Confident within a suit
They paint their vision and provide solutions
To nobody’s questions
In the narrowest of the scientific alleys.
Traveling
Kinetics and calculations make me tired
PCR and agarose gels make me appreciate life
Buffer and substrate dissolution remind me of holidays.
Every day in the lab head potential of taking you away.
