MEOW lab members are brilliant Johns Hopkins students/scientists who also dabble in the art of crimeless piracy. They are only guilty of stealing the show when they present their research.
How do they juggle between being a student, a researcher and a pirate with success at all three fronts? One would wonder. Here you are treated with a sneak peek of how they do it- take a look at the pictures of them hard at work during a regular day in MEOW lab.
Samantha thinks it is critical to weigh chemicals in utmost precision with eyes closed, preferably one eye covered by an eyepatch.
Rebecca can handle liquid nitrogen as a pirate navigating the Arctic Sea.
John, our guest of honor from the medical school crew, is not afraid of ice either. He shatters frosts at the -80C freezer with his signature focus and determination.
Junjie, who received his seafaring training in landlocked Indiana and graduated cum laude, prefers handling water in its liquid phase instead, as a pirate is more at home over the liquid sea. “What kind of pirates like an iceberg”, he muses.
Mihir also prefers handling liquids. His pipetting is deadly accurate. “Call me Master No Spill”, he proudly says.
Humza chooses to wear the eyepatch instead of his glasses when conducting important experiments for good results. “Not being able to see things clearly (left eye) or at all (right eye) focuses my mind on the protocol itself”, Humza explains.
Abdulla too wears the eyepatch instead of his glasses whenever he does cell culture. “This is the secret to my perfect record of zero contamination”, he reveals.
Sumayah tends to her cell culture as a pirate tends to her treasures.
Ryan breaks up two magnets stuck together as skillfully as a first mate breaks up a brawl between sailors. (Note Ryan wears both glasses and an eyepatch).
Jen knows how to work the centrifuge as a captain knows how to spin the steering wheel.
Jen and the apprentice crew. “When I am in my pirate mode, they fear me and will not screw up experiments”, Jen says.
Rachel shows off her supernatural microscopy skill of looking into binoculars through the eyepatch.
Not to be outdone, Daniel demonstrates how to take pictures with the eyepatch and the 3D printed hook but without a camera. “I defy the working distance of objectives”, Daniel says with a sense of pride. “With this hook, no one can turn the focus knob- I have to adapt”, he adds.
Daniel’s head-turning, thought-provoking, mind-boggling picture of a cell immersed in goo growing lamellipodia. Daniel’s microscopy skills are so impressive that he is the winner of the Dean Robert H. Roy Fellowship (see link for details). Daniel is dubbed as Miro of mechanobiology in our field.