A little behind-the-scenes of a day in the laboratory I built:

Today the fibroblasts need passaging. I’m also thawing some muscle cells for a new cell bank and I’m drafting an experimental plan to isolate a third type of cell from breast milk. I only recently learned there are live stem cells in breast milk - isn't science cool!? Given I had a baby less than a year ago, now’s the time to get these cells and bank them for future research!

Over the weekend, I heard good news about being short-listed in an entrepreneurship competition. The final is in four weeks and will be my first time pitching to a broad audience, so I've got a very clear set of experiments to knock over before then - I find these sorts of short-term deadlines really helpful for making sure I'm prioritising correctly.

It's been two months since I left my job to focus on building. So much can change in 60 days if you’re dedicated to making a bit of progress everyday - I’m not going to pretend it’s not hard work and that imposter syndrome doesn’t still kick in weekly (at least it's an improvement from daily) but I’m feeling very grateful that I have the opportunity to do this for a little while!