Our Bioinformatics collaborator, Charlotte Deane, in Oxford, e-mailed this link to me:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1fyhVOjr4       Go take a look - it's side-splittingly funny (probably because it's just so damned accurate!)

That means the BSCB is not far off.
You might ask how the lab is doing, since the last post..........Well, the Mass Spec is proving a bit more troublesome than hoped - mainly due to the machine breaking, and delaying the results. On the plus side, Pete has some (very) interesting results from some embryo injection experiments...........Jack's been in Taiwan at Tse-Bin Chou's lab, learning ovary dissection and imaging. He's just flown in and we're expecting a new, improved version (Jack 2.1)!..............Dan's got his fingers in lots of pies, and might even be about to do some experiments in human tissue culture cells (not that he knows it yet!)...........Faisal's about to start the long, hard push to the finish, and the final few months lab work. Still lots to do - June may become August......
As for me, it's been a tough term with Director of Education stuff, but I'm still hoping to get a couple of grant proposals out there for this round.                         

And, should everything continue as it's going, I should be beginning to write papers by the summer!!!

Yes, we're almost in 2012.....
So what can we forsee for the Wakefield lab in the auspicious year of the London-hosted Olympic Games and (according to the Mayans) a new Great Age? Well, I predict that: (i) Pete will get some great additional Mass Spec results, and his imaging will lead to a breakthrough in our understanding of CPC function (ii) Faisal will get the biological results to back up his network modelling, and write up a fantastic paper and thesis (iii) Simon will pass his viva with flying colours and come back and work in the lab for free (iv) Dan will get his project to a stage where he can write his elusive Current Biology paper (v) Jack will come back from Taiwan a changed individual, full of Eastern promise (vi) I will write a successful grant application - one that doesn't get rejected due to lack of funds or supposedly falling outside of the "remit" before the scheduled/cancelled committee meetings........Clearly, some of these are more realistic than others (I'll leave it up to you to decide which). All in all, though, as long as we're all working in a happy and conducive scientific environment, it'll be a grand year!

So the website is now up and running and hopefully error free! More Drosophila links should be coming soon, as will more description for the movies and images section as well as an old lab members section. As for Jacks lab member section, I think it is as accurate as any description of his science will ever be, so until he emails me with a new description that one is staying!

Yay, the website is coming along and there is now a blog feature which should link up to an rss feed in the front page. 

This blog can now act as a medium from which lab members can express their ideas to the rest of the world, which just might be the worst idea in history!