Morning everyone!
Here in rainy Wollongong, I’m starting my @science_a_thon #dayofscience by watering my office plants @MolHorizons @uowresearch, supervised by Dr Worm (a leaving gift from @LabSchafer)

In our lab, we are #neuroscientists, #geneticists and worm-wranglers - we use the nematode C. elegans to study how neurochemical signals tune learning & adaptive behaviour in the brain .

On this @science_a_thon #dayofscience, come on in and meet our worms!

Our little worms are microscopic, just 1 mm long, so we need a microscope to look at them.

Amazingly, worms have:

300 brain cells

~20,000 genes (not too different from humans!)

the ability to self-fertilise i.e. make both eggs + sperm and produce clones of themselves

Of course, like many other academic scientists nowadays, a LOT of my day is now spent on Zoom/WebEx... and this @science_a_thon #dayofscience is no exception.

I’m sure no one wants to see another picture of an online meeting, so I will spare you & show more worm pics instead

Phew! And now all those meetings are done, come into the lab @MolHorizons to continue my @science_a_thon #dayofscience!

We’ve got hoods, microscopes, water baths, incubators, heat blocks, pipettes... can you spot them all??

Today @science_a_thon #dayofscience I’ll be attempting to generate some transgenic worms by microinjection.

First step, making an injection mix.
Check it out - how much liquid do you think that is?

It’s 10 microlitres! That’s 100,000th of a litre! Whoaaaaaa

Just headed over to @ihmri for microinjections! Much excite.

@science_a_thon
#dayofscience

Ok so after a short episode of dropping a small... transparent... squishy tube on the floor (twice), then searching for it (unsuccessfully) on my hands and knees...

I have finally set everything up to inject!

@science_a_thon
#dayofscience

(Photo taken prior to clumsytime)

Hey there wormy.

(Photo taken on my phone, over the eyepiece of a microscope)

@science_a_thon
#dayofscience

So how does microinjection work? We fill a glass filament with a long tapered end (like a needle) with injection mix containing DNA .

Under the microscope, we move the needle veeeery carefully into the worm’s “germline”(the cells that pass on genes to progeny)... and inject!

After injections, briefly caught up with my lovely friend and colleague @AmyEMcG !

Dr Amy McGrath is an awesome crystallographer and microbiologist!

@science_a_thon
#dayofscience

Almost done with my @science_a_thon #dayofscience, now on the train home, watching the beautiful coastline in Dharawal country.

I have a pretty long (~90 min) train ride - but there’s always something to do: emails, readings or maybe even a little snoozle