It’s like walking upstream (distinctly different than swimming)

That’s how Shari describes it here, like walking upstream: walking because, if you tried to swim, you’d just get washed away. I left off with my last entry, days 1-3, on Monday, the day I was sick.

Tuesday turned out to be one of our two most productive days. Shari and Nike (who works with Christian Happi, our main collaborator in Nigeria) re-labeled all of the handwritten tubes with pre-printed barcodes provided by the Broad. Kristian and I recorded the volume and locations of every single one of our 1257 cryovials - I have developed a data and sample management system that takes advantage of the 2D barcoded kits of cryovials we get from the Broad, and integrates handheld collection technology, and other bells and whistles to bring data straight from collection to analysis. In order for the system to be effective, however, all of the old specimens first needed to be conformed to a single standard. - By 7 or 8 PM Tuesday we were successful on that front.

Then came Wednesday.

Late Tuesday, as we were finishing up, we realized that we were low on liquid nitrogen, so Christian and Kristian decided we should keep the tank closed until we got more from Lagos the next day. Lagos had other plans. The liquid nitrogen plant was ‘broken’, and dry ice wouldn’t be available until Wednesday around noon.

On Wednesday, Kristian Andersen woke up feeling very sick, so we had to cancel his talk, the car broke down on the way to Lagos to pick up the dry ice, and there was no electricity in the lab [electricity is inconsistent, running water is never]. Shari and I did persuade Christian to bring us to a local art shop where we are certain the guy has not sold anything all year. I picked up a neat tribal Yam Harvest Mask, bronze and some wall decoration. Shari got a pair of twins and a bronze statuette that apparently doubles as a weapon! As far as science goes however, not much could be done.

Thursday morning Kristian was still sick, and his condition was getting worse. As he continued to rehydrate himself, he seemed to only become more sick…then the eureka moment. I first became violently sick after drinking a whole bottle of La Voltic water, this was from the same case from which Kristian had been rehydrating himself. He turned over one of his bottles, and there it was, lots of visible white sediment floating around. Shari and I went over the data files with Nike, and I had a good sense of the HUGE amount of work that would need to be done that night.

After an all night data crunching session (and another bout of illness), trying to get many many different files of patient and sample information to fit nicely together, we were poised for a more successful day today, Friday. Shari and I prepared all of the new, barcoded (with my system) tubes and cryoboxes for the aliquots we are sending to collaborators in Sierra Leone, aliquots for viral sequencing, and additional controls for Kristian to fiddle around with the ELISA over the next week.

For a number of reasons, major changes have been made to my workflow plan. Kristian Andersen will now remain behind in Ibadan to work on the ELISA with Nike, as we will now keep the equipment for the ELISA in Ibadan rather than Irrua. Shari, Christian and I will head to Irrua where we will gather the rest of the information and samples there, clinical records, and begin thinking about how to optimize the collection procedures. Christian will pick up Elinor on the 26th, swing by Ibadan to pick up Kristian, and they will all join us in Irrua for the rest of the time here.

With regards to the database system, we decided that in order to have a seamless and gradual introduction of the technology, we will keep the database in Ibadan, and Nike (and hopefully a helper) will process, curate and test all specimens in Ibadan rather than in the field (Irrua), where infrastructure and staff are less reliable. Nike and Christian are our saviors in this project, without whom we would be absolutely unable to function here.

Tomorrow we head out for Irrua; the trip should take around 6 hours (optimistic), and if history informs us at all, it is sure to be eventful.