Getting Settled

Research
I couldn’t start my project this past week because my antigen is STILL being held hostage by customs. Despite having people from the lab calling pretty much daily, the antigen won’t be released until the people at customs call the capital, Brasilia, to see if our visa got approved. Apparently that’s not a huge priority for customs since they haven’t called yet. I’m moving on from just crossing my fingers to crossing both my fingers and toes…I’d really like to start doing work!

So I’ve been asked the question “what is this antigen and why is it so important?” a few times last week and I realized I’ve never really explained the role of this antigen in my project (or what it is for that matter). The goal of this project is to determine if a new diagnostic test for TB is able to a)diagnose TB and, more importantly, b)differentiate latent and active TB. The test works the same way as an existing TB test called QuantiFERON (QFT). Blood from a patient is incubated in an antigen from TB, the plasma is harvested and we run an ELISA to determine the amount of the cytokine gamma interferon produced. The amount of gamma interferon produced tells us if the person has TB and, hopefully whether they have latent or active infection. The new test uses different antigen than QFT. The antigen is a peptide (in this case 2 peptides) that are thought to be differentially expressed by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, depending on whether or not a person is latently infected or if they have active disease. The patient’s blood must be incubated in the antigen within ~1 hour after being drawn, so clearly I can’t start recruiting patients until customs frees the antigen!

Since I have no antigen and the rest of the prep work is done for this project, I’ve had a pretty boring work week. I passed a biosecurity class (consisting of LOTS of online quizzes in Portuguese) and spent the rest of the week trying to get people to take me up on the offer to help them with their work…no one took me up on that offer…Good new though, thanks to the biosecurity class I now know all about how to dispose of nuclear waste and genetically modified organisms properly…it was quite the comprehensive class! The first couple weeks are going to be an awkward transition and I’m really looking forward to starting research!

Life
I’m still working on getting adjusted to life in Salvador. My Portuguese is getting noticeably better (I think) and I’m slowly learning more about my neighborhood, Barra, and the rest of the city.

The food in Salvador is EXCELLENT! I usually have no idea what I’m eating, all I know is that I like it! There are a bunch of pay-by-the-kilo buffet places…these are going to get me in trouble…I always put too much food on the plate, eat it all, and then feel a little sick afterwards from eating so much. My only bad food experience was at a concert on Friday night. Federico was eating something that was blue/purple-ish and offered me a piece. It was really salty and pretty gross. I later found out it was cow spleen! I’m glad I have my own, but I don’t think I’ll be eating other animals’ spleens again. On a better food related note, I’ve become obsessed with açaí na tigela. This delicious smoothie-esque concoction is açaí berry blended with some sugar (I think…and maybe some orange juice?) and topped with bananas and granola. It’s a little cup of purple heaven.

I went to a concert Friday night with Federico and some of his friends. We saw Caetano Veloso a singer who, according to Wikipedia, is the “Bob Dylan of Brazil.” I really liked him! Everyone was really great, although I think learning some Brazilian pop culture will help me fit in. There’s a novela (soap opera) about India and it was ALL that some people were talking about. I need to watch this show!

On Saturday I found a crafty, slightly touristy market this weekend! I haggled the price for a lovely yellow hammock! I love it but can’t find a place to put it up in my apartment. No worries, I fully intend on taking naps in it this fall! I’ll post a picture later.

Aside from my continuing problems with customs, life in Salvador is going well. It’s been a huge adjustment living in a country where I don’t know anyone and am still learning the language. That being said, I’m slowly making some friends and I’m sure in another couple weeks I’ll feel right at home.

When I’m at my apartment I’m usually on skype and would love to talk! My skype name is megalt512.

Hope everyone’s summers are going well! Tchau!