Been awhile

Summer is rolling along here in the midwest...

There hasn't been much too blog about lately. I've been working on my PhD project a bunch and will be traveling to do some experiments in my mentor's lab at Notre Dame next week. Pretty cool stuff...I'll be using a very fancy laser and microscope to cut out individual cancer cells from 60-70 different patient's throat cancers. I'll then isolate the RNA from those cancers and perform next generation deep sequencing on each sample with the goal of identifying molecules called microRNAs that correlate with the presence of cancer and the severity of cancer. From there, we'll integrate that information into a nanomembrane-based nucleic acid sensor to provide a multiplexed platform to be able to detect cancers and viral infections associated with cancers. The long term goal is to optimize a technology to enable analysis of cells obtained from an oral rinse and gargle protocole and develop point-of-care diagnostics that can be used in a common dental clinic to detect oncogenic HPV.

I'm also super stoked that I'll have more teaching responsibilities this coming fall. I'll get to help 2nd year medical students learn about basic pathology, cancer biology, and immunology.

Then my wife (who just accepted a residency position in Anesthesiology here at MU...which means we'll be Tigers longterm) is working on a cool research project as a medical student where she's trying to get some statistical power to make some conclusions about common injuries in cyclocross compared to other forms of cycling. Anyway, stay tuned if you wouldn't mind filling out a survey sometime. I'm hoping she can get a little travel funding so we can go to Madison for nationals!

Riding-wise, I did a local road race today. It was a bunch of fun. My goal was just to keep the pace high and do as much work as possible then co-operate/align myself with anyone interested in a joint-effort (can you tell I'm a shitty road racer?). I got in a break at the end but couldn't bridge up to Tracy Smith or this other guy from KC, so I tried to lead out Benji and Tony Mayfield from Big Tree cycling (I didn't have teammates in the race). Almost a 300w and 24-25mph average for a little over an hour, so definitely a solid effort. I felt really good but don't have much high-end fitness at all right now.

Next up is 1-2 weeks off  from riding and transitioning to some CX training. Can't wait!