My research project consists of three parts that are not as closely linked as they perhaps should be, and each could easily be a project on it's own.
One part of the project is studying the cell cycle of Arabidopsis thaliana using flow cytometry, although flow cytometry in plants are not as straight forward as with animal cells. No one in my group has done plant flow cytometry ever, so when I started on this project in September I began researching a protocol. After a LOT of literature search and long discussions with the phd-student that helps me out, I decided to go for Galbraith's protocol.
The short version is:
The plant tissue is chopped using a razor blade in Galbraith buffer. The chopping release the nuclei from the plant cells into the buffer. The homogenate is then filtered to remove the rest of the tissue, treated with RNase A and stained with PI.
This protocol was first published in Science and has been described as genius in later articles. Therefore, understandingly, Galbraith turned into "the flow cytometer super-hero"!
From Semptember to January I just couldn't get the flow cytometer analysis to work and was SO close to emailing the hero. Today I actually did.
I've been struggling with understanding how to analyze my data and decided "this time I want help - fast!" I gathered all my courage, took forever to write a very simple email and pressed send. So proud! So very proud that I dared contact the super-hero!
It took less than an hour to get a reply... a very nice and helpful reply asking me a question about the method that I (very shamefully) couldn't answer right away. I'm therefore sitting here, anxious to get back to work and check up all details - and I just can't believe my awesome, super-brilliant-science-hero that help me out right away!
I seem to be meeting the nicest scientists everywhere
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