Influences...

Have you ever lost touch with someone that changed your life in a profound, visible way and then found them again? Did you ever think about what you would say to them? I am not a frequent facebooker anymore, but I recently came across my favorite teacher on facebook. We left the school at about the same time. He went on to earn a PhD and teach collegiately, while I went on to college. I didn't know the influence he would have on my life until much later. I always thought of myself as a normal or above average student. Being in gifted & talented classes and scoring in the 99th percentile on standardized tests never managed to shake this perception. I always did just well enough to be in the top few of the class. I only pushed myself with extra curricular activities. At first, I really did not like him, because he would give me a C on a paper that clearly would have been an A paper for most of the other students in the class. (I know that because of the number of papers I edited in the class.) He forced me to test my own ability. Because he demanded more from me, I demanded more from myself. I have ever since. It was nice to be able to tell him that.

Blessings in Disguise

What if we were always able to recognize a blessing in disguise? Well, I'm working on it. So, there was a little hold-up with the Oklahoma house and the HUD inspection. We thought we had everything done, and we could have our renter move in this weekend. However, there was an ambiguous stipulation in the contract that was overlooked so we have to push everything back to next week. Here's the blessing...the inspector let us in on a few more things we could do to raise the rental value of the house. Looks like we can make those changes this weekend. So, we will lose a week of rent, but we gain extra rent money each month. What annoyances have you missed as a blessing in disguise? God know the bigger picture, and we need to trust that He does everything for a reason.

Lee

A Prayer for warmth

As many of you may have heard, there have been severe power outages in the center of the country. As if a power outage in the wake of the cold was not enough, service crews are reporting that it could take weeks to restore power. So far, around 30 people have died because of the lack of electricity, cold or weather related issues. Lee's mother is among those seeking a warm spot to stay. Please join me in saying a little prayer for the safety of all of those without adequate shelter right now. Thank you.

-JohnMark

Research Economics

Pfizer just anounced that they were finally pulling the ripcord on the merger with Wyeth. At the same time they anounced cutting another 8,000 jobs, which I am sure will be followed by anouncing cutting jobs at Wyeth. Since 2007, they have cut almost 60,000 jobs. I am not an economist, but I have always thought that Pfizer has a terrible business model. Of the global pharmaceutical super powers, Pfizer has more buyouts than all the others combined and it is not nearly as old. Pfizer is in an inflated balloon, absolutely unsustainable. Consequently, they are constantly on the lookout for anything that be able to put air back in the balloon. I have a lot of friends that work for Pfizer, they make sure to update their resumes rather frequently.

I thought that working at a well-funded hospital would be a way of avoiding big pharma's roller coaster ride. I was wrong. University-wide emails reveal that a third of the endowment has been lost in the stock market. Along with the job freezes there have already been a number of cuts in the facilities services. Elevators are out of order, it takes twice as long to receive common supplies, and every day is an experiment with water pressure. Perhaps the greatest loss will occur in April, our NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) facilities manager is leaving and he will not be replaced. An NMR is as complicated as it sounds, but it is also an invaluable chemistry tool. The way things are going, I give it a couple weeks after he leaves before we have to outsource all of our NMR. At that point, some may wonder why certain forms of research here continue at all.

Just so I end on a lighter note....I saw The Big Bang Theory last night. It is a funny show about some research nerds, which is a huge in-joke for people involved in the sciences because everyone knows someone who IS one of the characters on the show. In last night's epiode, one of them found it more convenient to simply live at the lab. During our all-pain no-gain work schedule, Mike and I used to talk about how convenient it would be if we could just get a cot in the lab. There were several nights I didn't go home.

A New Superbowl Tradition?

Many of you know that I have hosted an annual Superbowl Party since I was in college. The first year, a bunch of guys crammed into my office on campus. The commuter lounge had a kitchen right outside the door which was perfectly convenient for such a unique place to watch the game. In graduate school, my roommate, Mike, and I built stadium seating so that we had three full couches and chairs stationed around the tv for the game. In New Jersey I learned the hard way that as people "mature" they are less likely to eat while watching the game. I think I had such an overwhelming surplus that I still had hamburgers and hot dogs for a Memorial Day BBQ. Last year, I had a modest last-second party because the OKC house was a work in progress. This year, it is simply not in the cards (pun not intended). Our place is cozy for two. When we had an engagement party with 8 people, some were forced to sit on cats. Sorry Gravy. A smaller number of people would actually be able to watch the game because of the viewing radius. Lee has been to one of my Superbowl parties and she knew how important it was to me. I had not mentioned the Superbowl at all, as though I had begun grieving for one of the few traditions I have maintained through multiple states and ~8 moves. Lee, however, spent some valuable time finding a cool place for us to go this Sunday. This is one of the many reasons I love my wife. The place she found most intriguing is called Finn McCool's, which is one of the better pub names I have heard. In a small way it made me want to open a bar named Paddy McAwesome's. I am not sure if we will end up there or not, but we have one McCool possibility.

-JohnMark

The Fun Begins as a Derryberry…

As you all know, I end up dealing with some unhappy customers in my quest to save cancels with the online company I work for. Most of the time, people are very respectful and allow me to walk them through the cancellation process. However, I had one lady who was absolutely irate about our refund policy (she ended up getting a full refund and had all necessary documentation). In the process of yelling at me, she told me she was going to write our corporate office detailing my reluctance to immediately issue her refund. She had my first name and asked for my last name. When I told her it was Derryberry, this really weird snort/laugh sound came out of her mouth. So, I said I had just gotten married and ended up with a really funny last name. Her response was very unique – she told me this was not a time for joking! Most likely, she will end up writing our corporate office referring to me as Lee Derryberry or whatever her real name is…

Lee

Rethinking "Obama Nation"

I would imagine that most of you know that yesterday was the Presidential Inauguration. Further, most of you probably know that Obama has a lot of ties to Chicago. His home is a couple blocks from where I work at the University of Chicago. (It is now part of the new employee orientation tour.) On a scale of 1 to 10, local support registers a 73 on the redonculous-o-meter. Yesterday there were people yelling "Obama Nation" on the bus while doing a little jig. It never occurred to me until then that for people that do not enunciate well...it is going to sound like "abomination" everytime.

-JohnMark

Hard times for the tribune

Many of you probably heard about the Tribune filing for bankruptcy last month. We live very close to the Tribune building, but I had not seen or felt any repercussions myself until today. I receive most of my news in digital form these days and I consider "the paper" a small luxury I do not often afford myself. I, and people like myself, are the reason that news companies are struggling. For this I apologize. We have come to demand top notch reporting without any personal investment, which brings an interesting question: when does the bottom run out? When will we be forced to pay for the news digitally so that reporters can remain solvent? I don't have an answer.
As I alluded to earlier, this morning I witnessed my first repercussion of the Tribune's financial woes. (For Chicagoans) I walk down Clinton from Fulton to Madison every morning. There is an El stop at Clinton & Lake along the way. Every morning I pass by the stop and give a nod and a smile to the guy selling newspapers on the street. He is there rain, shine or cold and it always makes me a little warmer knowing that he can brave the elements for hours on end. Suddenly, my bus stop does not seem so far. I do not know his name. I do not even know if he is (or was) employed by the Tribune, or if he was just selling papers to make a living. I do know he is friendly. There is a blind man that lives somewhere close. I have seen him talking with the newspaper peddler. This morning the newspaper peddler was not there, nor had he been there prior this week. The blind man and his seeing eye dog were waiting there, searching. He couldn't know that the crate was missing. With sad reverence, I informed the blind man. He nodded and we both trudged on. If you are out there newspaper peddler man, I want you to know that you matter. You made a difference in people's lives in ways that you probably do not appreciate.

A joke about pancreatic cancer

Many of you probably heard about Sen. Ted Kennedy recently. He has a terrible, virtually untreatable form of cancer. In reality, he probably does not a lot of time. My heart goes out to him and his family.
I mention this only because it caused an interesting discussion with some of the other pathology fellows. There have been some recent advances in other areas of cancer research that are very interesting. Many of you probably heard that Patrick Swayze was recently diagnosed with stage-4 pancreatic cancer. However, pancreatic cancer, even late stage like that, is not the death sentence it once was. Naturally, most of the recent advances have been the result of diabetes research. (What else?) My own research at Roche took a similar turn.
To all of the promising research and the hope that it holds for Mr. Swayze, the only thing I had to say was "No one puts cancer in a corner." After the laughter died down, we looked up the misquote and I was disappointed to find that I was ~1000th person to think of it.

-JohnMark

What I am working on...

People are always asking me what I am working on, so I thought I would give everyone a little update. I am currently working on Alzheimer's Disease research in the University of Chicago Hospital Pathology Department. Alzheimer's is caused by a peptide known as Beta Amyloid. Beta Amyloid is a very hydrophobic peptide cleaved from amyloid precursor protein. Because the peptide is very hydrophobic, it aggregates and when it forms a plaque in the brain it blocks neuronal synapses and you have Alzheimer's. There are no empirical tests to see if you have Alzheimer's. In truth, the only conclusive verification is through autopsy. I am synthesizing various forms of the Beta Amyloid peptide so that we can see exactly how it aggregates. If you think of a piece of paper, I am making the paper and we want to watch it crumple. If we can understand the "crumpling" then we might be able to engineer ways to prevent the aggregation, and thus prevent the disease. From a thermodynamic sense it may be impossible to reverse the effects of Alzheimer's without performing a surgery to remove the plaque. That surgery is not currently possible, since the plaque I am talking about is invisible to the naked eye. (I hope you're not eating right now) The plaque is normally separated from the gallimaufry of brain matter through chemical means after the brain tissue has been minced in a blender. Yes, a regular blender. Right now, I am working on replicating a series of mutations* from small family subsets exhibiting really early onset Alzheimer's (~late 30s). Since these mutations produce the aggregates (and thus Alzheimer's) much earlier it is kind of a way of speeding up our research.

*yes, mutations occur in people...some argue that it is the source of all variety and variety is pretty stinking sweet.

-JohnMark
PS Yes, I can openly discuss my research because it is publically funded. I know there were a lot of things I could not mention when I was working in industry.

The TV Challenge

I imagine that it is a surprise to no one that I struggle with my weight. I have tried a lot of different things with mitigated success. I worked in metabolic disease research for a long time and I understand all of the physiological realities. While most people try to lose weight before their wedding, I am starting a post-wedding diet regimen. I am a stress eater and I need to get a hold of this before I go to medical school. This time the stakes are high. If I lose 35 pounds by my birthday (8/13) then we purchase a new tv. Nothing fancy, but our current tv is from the late 1980s and I have made it known that I wanted a tv with...you know A/V jacks and stuff. So I am making this public declaration to hold myself more accountable. Please help me earn a tv that will enable us to read the news ticker at the bottom of CNN, ESPN, etc. Thank you. I will try to update everyone along the way.

-JohnMark

Karaoke Adventures

Saturday we went to our friend Shannon's apartment for a quality N'Orleans dinner: red beans and rice, cornbread, fried chicken and pig tails. I thought the pig tails were pretty good...there just didn't seem to be a lot of meat to them. My penance for trying one was that Lee refused to kiss me until after I brushed my teeth...the pig tails weren't that good. Shannon is a fantastic cook though, as well as an accomplished singer, poet and booty shaker. Despite lessons, we were not able to replicate the booty shaking. Lee and Shannon know each other through the Chicago School so most of the people in attendance were other classmates. Shannon's husband, Mike, and I entertained ourselves with SingStar, a newish Karaoke game for the PlayStation 3. For those of you that don't know, I love to sing and I have negative amounts of innate ability...a disastrous combination. At any rate we had a lot of fun. We were able to bust out our MC Hammer moves for a rendition of "Can't Touch This." I even managed to score "rising star" on "Never Gonna Give You Up." I have since decided that Rick Astley was not very talented.

Our First Marriage Motto

Before we left for the wedding, we saw a series of commercials that Jerry Springer aired to his local Chicago audience. They went something like "Hello Chicago. During the holiday season it is easy to get depressed, so check out my show, because watching other people's misery is almost like feeling better." There was a clip in the middle of a 3-biscuit lady in a tankini standing in front of a young guy with 6 teeth, a pair of boxers and an 80s tie. The guy informed the lady that "You knew what you was gettin' when you got wit it." I almost said it at the altar to help Lee stop crying. It is certainly the answer to every question in the Derryberry household right now:
"Did you take the trash out yet?"
"You knew what you was gettin' when you got wit it."
I encourage everyone to celebrate what they got when they got wit it.

-JohnMark

The Chicago Cold

Sweet Lawd-a-mercy it's been cold up here lately! Our apartment looks out over the Chicago river, which is eerily frozen as though it paused mid-ripple. Have you ever been outside when it's so cold that all the moisture in your nostril freezes the second you step outside? I am not sure that I had prior to last week. I also found out that Chicagoans named the cruel, biting wind off of Lake Michigan "The Hawk." I have never lived anywhere that had a pet name for weather events. Does the rain in Seattle have a name? It feels like it should, the tears or something... Saturday it warmed up to ~20º and I felt like it wasn't worth zipping up my coat. I am told that Punxsutawney Phil is receiving death threats. Written in rabbit's blood they say things like "you best just let your beady lil eyes look elsewhere." Why they are written in rabbits blood I have no idea.

-JohnMark

A blogging history

I have been reading blogs, specifically chemistry and pharmaceutical blogs, for some time now. I could never think about what I wanted to say though. I thought I would start with something like the Chemist and the City..which seems odd in retrospect since I was not "in" the city at the time. Also, I was not entirely sure that anyone would want to read about vague scientific musings or the kind of ridiculous dating life that seems to be interlaced with urban living. Consequently, I never put fingers to keys.
During the honeymoon, we met some other newly weds and they mentioned the idea of a digital marriage (Fusing to a single social email, calendar, etc.). As part of it they were going to begin a marriage blog as a convenient way of letting everyone know what was going on in their lives. It can be difficult to discern these things from facebook and the like. Lee and I thought it was a good idea...we are certainly tired of forwarding emails. So, here it is our marriage blog....

Relevant event: Marriage- January 3, 2009 Clearwater, FL

-JohnMark