Hello to all readers who may grace this blog with your attention. 

My name is Andreas Helle, and I have had the pleasure of participating in BIO299 in the fall of 2025. This semester introduced me to the fascinating work of a molecular lab at the University of Bergen, where I worked in Professor Aurélia E. Lewis’s lab on the EBP1 project. This possibility allowed me to experience conducting real research and produce results that might not be expected (or fail). But first introduction. 

I am a 3rd-year student in the Biology bachelor’s program, and in the 3rd year, students are free to choose the subjects that pique their interests. With this in mind, I was 100% certain that I wanted to do lab-related work, so I jumped at the chance of doing research in a lab in the course BIO299 Research in Practice. 

Figure 1: First Western blot. I thought it was cool, so I took a photo 

This landed me the opportunity to learn the protocols and familiarise myself with the workflow of actual scientists. And soon enough, I would be doing work independently. The first thing that stuck out to me was that I entered a door with a giant biohazard sign without any protection, not even a mask. The only precaution I had to follow was to use crocs to avoid contamination. This stark contrast to my expectation of a professional lab was surprising, but also made things feel less intense. Since the vibe was so relaxed, I didn’t have to worry that much about safety and so on. Granted, I did wear a contamination coat thing and gloves when I actually worked with cells. So there still was the slight worry of contaminating the cells I got to work on. But in the end, nothing went wrong, and I got to familiarise myself with cell husbandry protocols. But things didn’t end up going so smoothly the entire way. 

Figure 2: Liquid nitrogen tanks and storage rack from one of the tanks. Pretty cool imo. 

Throughout the course, I was taught and guided by my supervisor and her assistant, Diana Cornelia Turcu. Initially, I was observing, then I tried while they guided me and then when I got the hang of things, I tried to do things on my own. Which, for the most part, worked perfectly fine. They were often available if I needed any help, so it wasn’t a trail of fire or anything. But man, did I make mistakes. It wasn’t just accidents or miscommunication either, I forgot parts of the protocol during the process, took the wrong chemicals, pipetted the wrong amount, straight up failed to follow other parts of another protocol and even took the wrong sample once. The labels were faded and hard to read, but still. The number of mistakes I made was insane, and some were straight-up embarrassing. It makes me angry to think about how silly some of them were in hindsight. But there is a silver lining.  

Even when I failed, all I had to do was figure out what I did wrong, write it down so that I could confirm what I needed to in the future and let my supervisor know what happened. The last point was definitely the worst, since it was pretty embarrassing. And it was not like I had the ability to hide it either, since I don’t think I had the knowledge or experience to properly make up results anyway. Not that I would do that. But in the end, it helped knowing that when I was working on my own and just reporting to my supervisor, I was only wasting my own time by making silly mistakes, forcing me to repeat the tests. So I was better off making the best out of it and ensuring that I did it right the second time, or the third time in some cases. So one could say that I learnt even more from these mistakes, or better yet. I would say that these types of mistakes are an important part of the learning process, so if there is anything I want aspiring scientists to know, it’s that it is definitely okay to make mistakes. Well, as long as you don’t harm other people, that is.