The Skinny

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Detroit, Mi
I'm in the process. I'd like to expand on that, but it's in the process. I go about my business under the guidance of gut-feelings and universal street signs. I see myself as a very quiet person. Not because I have little to say, only that my abundant thoughts know not where to start. As a child I fantasized about looking through a telescope to give me truth about the world. It amuses me now that what I am doing is looking down a microscope in an effort to reevaluate my holistic position. I am a loner, a drifter, a dreamer.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

A thing About Something.

Just real quick, I'm going to bring us all up to pace. Started my first week in chemistry. It's been brutal. I've been quarantined in this corner of the lab where they do all the special chemistry test. The focus has been on SPEs (serum protein electrophoresis) and I must admit, my focus has been elsewhere. I need a coach. Someone to throw water in my face, hand me a towel, and bark at me to get back in there. Ding ding.
So about SPE, here is what I've gathered while operating on three hours of sleep. The principle of electrophoresis is just running a electrical current through this gel and setting up this perfectly charged environment for your specimen. Proteins in your blood, piss, and other leaky fluids (that carry a negative charge) are dragged across a gel they're placed on. The amount and kind of proteins found are of a diagnostic value, they can tell you how sick you are, how sick you might get, and why you're sick.



Step two: stain it with dye to visualize it. The type of proteins are broken down into 5 parts: albumin, alpha1, alpha2, beta, and gamma. The quantity of proteins are reflected in the width of the band (those areas that have stained darker). Final step, run it on a fancy densitometer and do some data crunching. Looking at this hot mess, you can see normal proteins present, characteristic abnormal proteins, and the quantity.



Take a look at each blip, each bump. By looking at the waviness of each peak you can determine wtf is wrong with the person. Is their gamma region out of wack? It could be multiple myeloma. A decreased albumin shows inflammation, look at the alpha1/alpha2 areas to distinguish between acute or chronic inflammatory states. Or maybe it could be an autoimmune disease... mhhmmmmm, this requires further investigation!

I am done with SPE today, tomorrow I start immunofixation! It's one step further than SPE. This is when you know your bands got a major malfunction and it's time to dig deeper. What kinda antibody could it be? IgA, IgG, even 'effin IgM?! haha, I'm so dramatic.
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