I got back to Copenhagen late Friday night. Right before we left London, our entire class sat down to high tea. I had never been to high tea before, and I was more than a little confused about what exactly it entailed. My American ways consider it a deluxe tea experience if I heat the water in a kettle rather than the microwave.
High tea, it turns out, consists of specialty chocolate flavored tea never to be found anywhere else, an endless supply of finger sandwiches, and applying enough clotted cream to your scones to “feel shameful.” I loved it. What’s not to love about endless platters of beautifully crafted Willy Wonka themed desserts? Needless to say, it certainly was a fine way to go out of our London adventures.
So beautiful, so pure
Speaking of London adventures, I promised to tell you more about the academic visits coming up that week. We visited several university laboratories, including a building shaped like a cell and the Oxford Institute of Rheumatology, where we got stuck in an elevator with leading experts in tissue regeneration.
We must not have had a nuclear localization sequence, because we didn’t actually get to go in the nucleus
when you tour a lab and get stuck in the elevator, you take scared selfies with Oxford postdocs
My favorite visit, however, was to a company called Spirogen, which is creating cancer treatments so elegant and functional I wanted to cry looking at their chemical structures. What they do is they make an antibody that binds specifically to sites only found on the targeted type of cancer cells. They then attach their special, super potent “cancer killer” molecule to this antibody using the most intensive chemistry I’ve ever seen. They can target this treatment to any type of cancer so long as the right binding sites are found. It is, essentially, the miracle drug. Visiting their laboratories was much like any other chemistry lab- familiar devices: mass spec, centrifuge, gas chromatography. It made the thinking behind their work seem all the more powerful.
Anyways, I am beginning to transition back to the classroom. I have a bunch of papers and tests coming up before my next travel break- to Barcelona this time, with my parents! And I’m starting to work on getting my summer plans in order, which is a milestone in itself. I’ll keep you updated.
Ever lovely yours,
Eleanor