My hands are now stained!
I have begun experimenting on animals. I didn’t plan on things working out like this, they just did. If I want to manipulate genes I have to use a model organism. Mice seem to be the most relevant and so…
To work with animals you have to be detached, calculating and, most importantly, merciless. I am none of these things, and so I am not very good at animal work. I can barely pick up the little creatures and yet I am going to have to do surgery on them. Lots of surgery.
Mostly I am just watching my advisor carve up mice and inject my viral particles into their embryos, but I am going to have to figure this out eventually. Today I sutured a dead mouse and practiced loading up needles. I felt a horror movie antagonist. Stitching up a dead animal filling tiny glass needles all for some senseless purpose no normal human mind could interpret. I may start opening up pregnant mice, imaging them and then stitching them back up again just to practice. Sacraficing mice for practice! Is this who I am? Apparently so.