>Heyyy,
Happy NYE!! What are your plans tonight?! I’m staying local and hitting up a few friends’ parties because tomorrow I need to pack pack pack for the cruise!
What do you do to get ready for a vacation?? Saturday I’m planning to get a mani/pedi and my eye lashes died (ever done this? I love it). I’m also planning on gettin’ ma spray tan on:
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I was considering going tanning (UV) a few times to build up a “base” tan, but after taking with at least 3 oncologists in my lab, I decided not to. Apparently, new research has come out that a couple of tans in tanning beds are worse than a burn in the sun (both cancer-wise and ability to make you look like a leather bag by the time you’re 40). You should really check out this article.
NOTEWORTHY: “The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced today that it has moved UV tanning beds to its highest cancer risk category — “carcinogenic to humans. Prior to the move, the group had classified sun lamp and tanning bed use as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
(!!!)
Personally, I think spray tans are fantastic. Since I’m fair skinned I shower after 2-3hrs after getting sprayed (rather than 4 hours) so I don’t turn too dark. I also exfoliate the c-r-a-p out of my skin to avoid streaking. I recommend giving it a try if you haven’t before 🙂 I’ve also heard wonders about airbrush tanning!
Speaking of cancer, I’ve received a few e-mails asking what kind of “cloning” I’m doing. Just so ya know, when I refer to cloning, I am doing molecular cloning (aka shuffling around of genes) and not cloning people, animals, etc 🙂 I figured I’d try my best to explain this, as I think it’s perdy cool stuff.
DNA, our genetic material, is a looong sequence of 4 (nitrogenous bases) “letters”: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). It is the random order of these 4 letters that makes one gene different from the next, one person different from the next, etc.
A gene is the “code” for a functional protein. I say “functional” because this is the final product conferring some sort of function. In my research, I am designing antibodies, a type of protein that can act as an anti-leukemia “drugs”, by killing cancer cells rather than healthy/normal cells.
In order to create the antibody, I have to “clone” the DNA that codes for the protein. This means I’m doing several experiments to shuffle around those 4 letters (A,T,C, and G) to generate a meaningful gene sequence that will allow the production of my antibody. Think of a computer code. Programmers write computer code to allow for some computer function. In my case, molecular cloning is “writing” in DNA letters to make a functional protein. Neat, eh?
Alright, enough science for the day (you not me, I’m in lab til prob 6pm). Have a great night!!!!
Lauren
Biochemista 
