University of Guelph Bacterial Genomics Day 18: Lessons, Life, and Love ft. SSP

Welcome to the second-half of SSP! It may be the second half, but my heart is entirely full—overflowing with labs, lectures, and loads of laughter. I know many of us have been told that “you only know love when it’s gone,” but if SSP has taught me anything, it’s that you can recognize love while you are living in it. Every early morning and late night has been inscribed in my memory, and I will carry all of our inside jokes, repeated experiments (re-autoclaving!!), and extraordinary relationships as souvenirs of love itself.

My day started at 6:29 AM, allowing me to divulge in a Canadian morning with Tims, a plate of routine potatoes, and habitual “Good mornings” from other participants. As we headed to the Summerlee Science Centre to begin disassembling our chemostats, I recall watching our bacteria grow, fall, and grow back again—a process familiar to all 36 of us. Although the journal Nature claims Vibrio natriegens are the fastest-growing organism, I believe human nature says otherwise. Within SSP, we quickly learned to perpetually adapt, inspired by our version of the three R’s: re-autoclave, re-inoculate, and re-gDNA extraction. While this may appear daunting, the prefix “re-” might be the most versatile in the English language. To restart is to regrow, and to regrow is to achieve the goal of SSP!

Specifically today, when my lab group, Shawn, Chiara, and I (team puffins!) were generating growth curves for our wild-type and mutant V. natriegens, we were aiming for an optical density value between 0.1 and 0.05, but got a value over 0.1. Other groups also echoed similar sentiment. These echoes are rippled by endless questions, debates over filling our 96-well plates with “wait just one more attempt,” and laughter throughout each protocol. Room 4108 was then, as per usual, a room enveloped by trial and error. Once the majority of us successfully repeated our gDNA extraction, we headed to the atrium to lock in on some PSETs.

This might be a stretch, but the plate wells spoke to me like poetry. And isn’t poetry in everything around us, science included! Ninety-six wells with failed attempts, successful experiments, and everything else in between (controls perhaps!). How different is that to the recurring theme of the human heart? Within around 2 and a half weeks, I already contain pieces of everyone around me. Whether that is my roommate Sarah’s discipline, my lab group’s positivity, or our faculty’s rigorous dedication—I am a living museum displaying the archives of it all. Is my heart really my own if it contains fragments of everyone around me?

Anyway…back to SSP! Summary in a snap short: following lunch, we went back to lecture to engage in an interactive activity from Dr. Correa that explored evolutionary tradeoffs through “friendly” competition among groups trying to survive! Next, our cohort reconvened as we headed to the atrium with Guelph biochemistry and explained our unique projects to each other. I may not remember the names of all the fungi and proteins mentioned…but I’ll remember participants names for sure!

After a long yet fulfilling day of academics, we needed to be replenished. Through deep consideration, our lovely TAs generously bought us pizza in the lounge—36 teenagers with large appetites is not for the weak. Shoutout TA Faizaan and TA Evelyn!

Finally, to conclude my blog turned notes app, I can confidently declare that every aspect of the day was good. That’s solely because what I experience is tinted through the lens of my perspectives and opinions. If a paintbrush is immersed in various colours, the canvas will be just as vibrant. Similarly, if we choose to see good—all will be good.

The world is my oyster, and in terms of seeing the good, the pearl is no different from the shell.

And as for entering the second-half of SSP?
If loss is proof of sustaining love, let me welcome grief with open arms.