Crystallization Michael Jin

The hum of the centrifuge sharpened to an insistent whine, clicking softly as the safety lock disengaged. I collected my vial and reached for the pipette -- that sixth extension of my hand. My fingers shook slightly, but I was careful not to drop the vial, for it contained precursor B cell receptor proteins in a concentration high enough to crystallize -- my goal for the past month. Ever since my sixth birthday, when I read Cell Wars, a picture book on the immune system, I had wanted this moment of fruition and anticipation. I felt as if I were on the verge of entering the mid-game in chess. And in a sense, research feels much like that pastime. The first moves are procedural -- everyone must move out the pawns and knights. From there, it gets interesting. My work requires the same combination of intuition and analysis as chess does -- to probe the many possibilities not for the best moves, but for the optimum crystallization conditions. I must always think a couple steps ahead and compare each experimental result to my overarching hypothesis. And I do have an opponent -- time. It took a few weeks before I was able to look through the Leica microscope and see baby crystals. They were not pretty rubies or sapphires, but they...