I’m reaching a point in my current project where I’m not entirely sure where to go next. I don’t want to get too specific or anything but I’m trying to extract and image a protein and so far it hasn’t been working. It’s led me to ask the question: what do I do when I don’t know what to do? So far I don’t have an answer for this one, the obvious answer is to “try something else” but that’s vague and isn’t an action plan, try what else. There are a near infinite number of “elses” that I could try to do and no reason to believe any of them would fix my problem. I’ve considered trying to approach the problem from a different angle: why do I think the protein is there to begin with and can I prove that? But nothing is without cost, I could do a big experiment to prove what I already suspected to be the case (the protein is there) without solving my underlying problem (I’m not able to extract and image it). Doing an experiment where the upside is a major setback and the downside is to remain stuck in a rut isn’t appealing.

So I’m still very busy with this project and that’s my excuse for not having a good post today 🙂