What's up with me?

Wow, I guess it seems like I’ve been MIA for a while. My life has changed dramatically over the past couple of months. I’m happy to announce that I defended my thesis back in October, marking the completion of my Ph.D. work. The very next week, I started my career as a scientist at Amyris in Emeryville, CA (in the San Francisco/Oakland area). I am both proud and excited to be a part of this company. Amyris was originally founded by graduates of the Keasling lab (at Berkeley) working to produce amorphadiene and eventually artemisinic acid in E. coli and yeast. This work was funded largely by the Gates foundation and One World Health to produce the anti-malarial drug artemisinin. They were tremendously successful with this work and the process has been handed off to Sanofi-Aventis who will produce and distribute the drug worldwide as a non-profit venture. Most of the work at Amyris now is focused on the production of next generation biofuels. We’re also targeting a few other commodity chemicals based on the isoprenoid pathway.

My work there is essentially the same as what I was doing in grad school, just with a different metabolic pathway. This is good because I was able to jump right in and feel like I’ve been able to contribute a lot in the past 2 months. But I’ve also found myself keeping even longer hours than in grad school, especially with meetings and not being able to take off in the middle of the day and go to the gym. And I live within walking distance so it’s hard to stay away. But I really, really enjoy it and I work hard by choice.

Everyone asks, but of course, I still go to the gym no matter what. Training is pretty good although the gym(s) I go to are not nearly as good as the one in Pasadena. I usually go to Gold’s Gym in Oakland but it’s downtown so everything is pretty packed in. Anyway, I take care of business. However, I have decided to forego the NY Pro show (I think) and wait till Atlantic City in September. Hopefully I will have established myself a little bit more at work and may even have an RA (research assistant) so I won’t have to slave away in the lab. Right now, I just can’t see myself making time for all the cardio. Shoot, a normal day with 12 hours on my feet in the lab and then getting to the gym at 9-10pm at night wears me out enough! I’m also looking forward to my significant other and training partner (Branden Ray) moving out here…hopefully in the next month or so. We spent New Year’s (our 1 year anniversary) with his family in New Jersey and had a great time. I fell in love with his cousin’s son Jesai—he just turned 3! Awww. Oh, we also trained at some great gyms—Diamond Gym and of course Strong and Shapely!

at the finish line....

The past few weeks have been absolutely crazy. I had the privilege of giving a talk at Synthetic Biology 4.0 in Hong Kong last weekend. It was the first stamp on my passport and a pretty interesting conference in general. I only got to do a little sight-seeing the first and last days since the university where we were staying was a bus and a train ride away from anything. Everyone is curious so let me just say, we had a kitchen so think I only ate one meal out the whole trip. It's not a very bodybuilding-friendly place. Even my friends who are 'normal' didn't like the food so I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. But there are very few obese people in China so maybe they are on to something.

I took my laptop to work on my thesis and got quite a bit done except on the return flight when the outlets in the seats didn't work---ugghh!! But I was able to finish a decent draft to print for my committee a few days ago. I am still on Hong Kong time so I found myself at Kinkos at 5am and I wasn't even tired. I was already a night owl so I was hoping the trip would get me back on a normal schedule but it made things worse! So even though that's done, I'm still finishing up quite a few experiments. I just have waaayy too many yeast strains. And most are about the same so I'm trying to pick out the 'best' ones for various products and still make new ones that could be 'better.' I will have to just shut down though at some point soon. The problem is that my protege is not working on this part of the pathway so I don't know what's going to happen with the work I've done there since I don't think it's enough for a paper---well, maybe a brief communication.

So this morning I was on my way to the Ironman studio to do the nationals preview show with Ruth Silverman when my car totally died on the 110. Fortunately, the metro freeway tow truck came pretty quickly to get me off safely. Then I waited over an hour for my friend to come tow me to a service station. It turned out to be my fuel pump and $750 later, I got my car back the same day and still had time to go to the gym. Speaking of which, they're doing some construction in my gym so most of the freeweights are going to be gone for a few days. Very upsetting but it needed to be done; some underground pipes kept flooding that area and you don't want to be sliding around with 100lb dumbbells. Oh well, this is why I have multiple gym memberships.

I also have a big move coming up--I will be in the bay area at the beginning of november. I still have to find a place and work out all the details plus clearing out my apartment and lab space. I'm not looking forward to the packing and cleaning part but I'm very excited to start my new job. This is good b/c I am not taking any time off. It'll be nice to start something new and be working with so many great scientists. It's really amazing the progress they made on the artemisinic acid project and that they're already successfully applying that knowledge to biofuels production (in yeast). OK, I still have work to do tonight. I've gotta get my FINAL presentation ready.

Burning the midnight oil...

Well, my fate is officially sealed. I've set my defense date for Oct. 28 and will start work at Amyris in Emeryville, CA on Nov. 3. The past couple of weeks have been a blur since I signed the papers. I kinda have to do this thesis thing, not sure what that's about. I've been trying to work on it but I still have so many experiments I want to include (and even things I've done that I want to double check to make figures for, etc). There are not enough hours in the day...or night since I've officially switched to the graveyard shift. I'm so much more productive when it's quiet in the lab without so many, well, we'll just say distractions. So here I am still concentrating my protein to start a western blot at nearly midnight. Which means I still have to do a Bradford assay, run the gel, transfer, block, wash, and add my antibody (in addition to other experiments I have going). Sigh. Last night I did go out for a bit for a friend of a friend's birthday. We went to a piano bar which was a lot of fun. Why do guys always like to challenge me in public? Hello, these muscles are all show and no go! We weren't out too long but it was still nearly 3am by the time I came back and finished my cloning.

No worries, I'm still hitting the gym HARD every day no matter what. It keeps me sane. I almost ran out of chicken today though which NEVER happens! But honestly, life is great; just extremely hectic but I will get through it. My thesis is due in ~3 weeks now plus I'm going to China the week before that. I found out today I'm giving a talk at SB4.0 instead of just a poster so that's really cool and also much easier to prepare.

Right now I'm not sure if I'll make it to the Olympia. I think Branden will cry if I can't go. I have to get a new laptop at least so I can sit in the hotel and work. I just can't seem to leave my bench for a day. We'll see. I want to go just to see him since we've both been so busy (him with the election coverage at CNN). Back to work!

So they say with age comes wisdom...

...but in some cases, age comes alone. Sigh. I turned 28 this week and I do hope I've learned something over the years! Soon I will have my Ph.D. for what it's worth. Ok, it will be worth A LOT :) I still don't have anything finalized but I'm planning to defend my thesis in October and move to the bay area towards the end of the month. Everything's happening so fast it's a little scary....although it did take 5 YEARS to get to this point.

I'm a little disheartened b/c I don't think I will meet all of my project goals. I just hit a pretty major snag. One of my products is not formed at physiological pH and yeast are not happy under alkaline conditions, not to mention the function of my other enzymes. I have a lot of ideas to work around this but nothing that will be completely worked out in <2 months. But it's pretty much been settled that I will be done without any stipulations of, "IF A, B, and C work..."

There's not much other news. Branden and I went to the Europa a few weeks ago since he was working the VPX booth. My parents and aunt came to have lunch with us so that was really nice. I'm very lucky that my family is so supportive. They don't mind that I have big muscles and a big black boyfriend!

So one other thing I wanted to mention. I should be doing a nationals preview video for the women with Ruth Silverman of Ironman. It's mainly to generate hype for the show but I like to have the best intel possible. If you or someone you know is expected to be a top contender, please email me (kristy_hawkins@hotmail.com); it helps if you've done a previous contest covered by graphicmuscle.com so they can easily pull photos. And Lord help us with figure!

MSNBC and NCB

So the MSNBC documentary "HOOKED: Muscle Women" featuring myself, Colette Nelson, and another female bodybuilder aired last night for the first time. I wasn't able to watch the show myself but have gotten a lot of positive feedback. It will continue to run this week so if you happen to catch it, let me know what you think. Branden said they introduced us as people first before discussing any of the things that could be viewed as negatives or stereotypes. From what I heard, the psychologist actually backed up one of the points I wanted to get across---that we ALL have insecurities when it comes to body image. It has taken me years to get to the point where, when I look in the mirror, I am overwhelming happy with what I see. How many women can say that? So it doesn't bother me when people ask, "why do you want to look like that?" because I'm proud of what I've accomplished...and yes, it does take a lot of work and dedication. Of course, it is addicting and like anything taken to the extreme, can become detrimental when it gets to the point where someone cannot be a functioning member of society. However, the show clearly showed 3 women who are not only functional, but exceptional people. And just because we don't go out drinking on the weekends, doesn't mean we don't have an active social life!

Some other exciting news--my paper was finally published online today in Nature Chemical Biology http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nchembio.105.html. Check out the feature on Nature News as well http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080810/full/news.2008.1031.html. The cover art for the September issue will also be highlighting my work so I'm very pleased with how everything turned out. We had champagne in the lab today to celebrate and I should be defending my thesis in October as planned. I actually had a little scare last week when I realized I was a few credits shy of the requirements. At one point I thought I was going to have to take 21 units next term but I had some biochem credits transferred from Texas A&M that were more than enough to finish my biology minor. Whew! Those of you who know me probably noticed I stopped taking classes like 4 years ago without really knowing the requirements (Caltech kinda hides that info from us). But I managed to scrounge up some hours so (hopefully) I'm in the clear!

Vegas vacation

So last weekend was the USA bodybuilding championship in Vegas. A HUGE congrats to Holly Geersen for taking 2nd in the heavyweights. Holly and I have been good friends for about 5 years now and I was just beyond excited for her--she looked fantastic. I'm so jealous of her legs!! I was also screaming my head off for Kris Murrell, Chris Sabo, Karen Choat, and Claire O'Connell who all had excellent top 5 showings. Oh, and I'm a new fan of LW winner Rita Rae. It makes me very excited about some of the upcoming female pros in this sport. Isabelle in particular will be some tough competition for all of us!!

On the men's side, my boyfriend Branden Ray finished 2nd in the LHW class. He was conditioned and dry but just lacked some of the detail that the more seasoned competitors displayed. Standing next to the best guys in the country really lets you know what you need to work on. But we give each other so much support and motivation that we will both be fierce next year lol!

I ended up staying in Vegas a few extra days while he was doing shoots. We had some time at night to walk along the strip, ride the roller coaster at NY, NY and go to a comedy club--that's one of our favorite things to do. I didn't want to leave :( But eventually I had to come back and finish my experiments. I can't believe I missed the earthquake while I was driving back! When I got home, stuff had fallen out of the kitchen cabinets and my TV and trophies fell off the shelf but no real damage occurred near here.

OK, I'm trying to finish up tonight. I've been working sooo late...but I can also sleep late most of the time so it works out. Some kinda cool news--my paper will be featured as the theme for the cover art of Nature Chem Bio in September along with a special news and views highlighting the work. So I guess everything worked out after all :)

Accepted!!

Good news finally--my paper was accepted to Nature Chemical Biology and will be published in the September addition! It's still a very high impact journal so everything worked out in the end. I found out last week right after I got back from D.C. so it was perfect timing and we were able to get everything properly formatted etc before the deadline. That's a huge weight off my shoulders. In the meantime, of course I was still plugging away in the lab and I think I am pretty close to writing up a short follow-up paper. The submission/review process can take a long time but I don't have to wait for all of that to graduate. Right now I'm thinking I'll be ready to defend in Sept/Oct. I want to make at least slight improvements on the additional stuff I have working now and I think that will be enough.

The USA is right around the corner and last week I did a preview show with Ruth Silverman--check it out at http://www.ironmanmagazine.com/media/videos.php?id=294&subcat=Ruth&title=USA%202008:%20Womens%20and%20Fitness%20Predictions. I'm sure we left some people out and included some that will end up not doing the show but you just kind of go with the best intel you have (which is not much) and try to generate some hype for the show. Of course, for the men, Branden Ray will win the HW and overall :) Everyone else will be battling for the second pro card.

In other news, a position finally opened up at CNN in LA and Branden will be moving to the west coast! I guess I can say that since it's already been posted on GetBig (thanks, Lonnie). I'm still planning to move to San Francisco in the fall but nothing's finalized yet so something else could come up around here. Either way, we will be much closer.