It doesn't seem like it's been since October since I last posted, but we've been busy. We're getting pretty comfortable in Lafayette. The adjustment from house to apartment hasn't been too difficult. If anyone wants a house in South Bend, though, we've got one on the market.
Now that I've really been diving into my Master's project I'm finding that infectious disease research is more challenging in some ways than I had considered. One trick is that I am using molecular techniques, so I have spending a great deal of time extracting DNA and running PCR. PCR basically looks at a segment of DNA unique to an organism and, if that segment is present, multiplies it exponentially so that it can be detectable. The organism that I am working with is present in the samples that I've been running. This is good news for me. I have a project that is more likely to receive funding to continue and that means that I am more likely to be able to convert directly to the PhD research. The challenging part is that it's out there. It is a zoonotic disease, which means that it affects humans as well as animals, and we've been missing it in Indiana. We suspected this, which is part of why I have the funding that I do now, but it's one thing to accept it in theory and another to recognize that it is out there. It's too early in the research process to predict any outcomes or concrete next steps. I'm hoping to have a publication from the first part of the project ready in the fall and I'd like to present a poster at AVMA 2013, so I'll have more to share. In the meantime, I keep being reminded of the truth that if you don't look you're not going to find.
