The ah-ha! moment

I've been a bit distracted lately with everything going on at work and outside of that, which made a moment last week that much more special. We've been working on producing preliminary data for a project that should be a slam dunk. Getting those data should have been easy - all of the techniques are ones I have used with success in other systems before. Despite the project being straightforward on paper, the reality is that the organisms just won't cooperate. There are several complicating factors, but in the end the data are just not coming and for reasons that are not readily apparent.

There is still some time before we submit the grant, but we needed a work-around to show that we know what the hell we are doing. I was talking about the project with the grad student working on it when I suddenly realized how we could use different data to show what we wanted to, while simultaneously showing competence in a technique that we will need to use if the grant gets funded. That thought, combined with the fact that I had (for once) thought ahead and previously bought the reagents to do the new technique on the off chance that we needed to, and it was one of those moments that make me love this job. I won't know for a couple of days whether this will be the answer, but it sure as shit is better than beating our heads against a wall with our previous approach. I think this project is going to put me on the map as an independent investigator, so if this works...