Research is a practice. High-level invention, theory development, and inference are important, but the only way science progresses is with the daily grind of rigorous, meticulous testing. Some of the hardest work is done in the set-up, organization, and execution of laboratory processes.
Dr Aascha D’Elia is a senior technical officer at the Baker Institute. Within the Translational Cardiology Centre, she has a hand in nearly every project they run. “I’m there to support them all,” Aascha says, “so, I might set up physically for one person, but then I’m in surgery helping another, I’m trying to coordinate a study for someone else… I work on a lot of projects.”
Aascha makes sure that everything runs smoothly in the lab. From set up to pack down, she’s the go-to. Coordinating studies in such a high-output platform is a complicated and very busy job; liaising with clients, keeping track of paperwork, scheduling each step of each procedure within each experiment, and on and on. “I make sure we have what we need to get through each day, each week, each study,” Aascha says, “so we can get through all of the studies we need to.”
“What I enjoy most about my role is that it changes day to day,” Aascha says, “so one day we might do similar surgical procedures for groups or clients, but the actual studies themselves change, and the people we work with change. So you have this great collaboration and flexibility within the work.”
“We also get to work across so many different projects and see so many different things. Some days we might be doing echo[cardiogram], and then we might be doing catheter the following day, and MRI the day after that…” Aascha says, “there are so many studies with so many different components, so you always have something new to work on, and you never get bored.”
Aascha and her team run PV Loop experiments to assess cardiac function. They're highly specialized experiments and just one of a wide range of tests Aascha must expertly conduct.
Having started out doing her PhD in diabetes research, Aascha wasn’t sure she wanted to continue with academia after her studies finished. “I took a step back, and then I realized I really missed it,” Aascha says, “but I didn’t want the stress and pressure I’d been through in my PhD, so I started looking for positions that would allow me to be part of a different aspect of the research world.”
Moving into a more support-focused role was a game-changer. Aascha found that helping her research clients through each step of their research gave her the opportunity to stay enmeshed in the day-to-day technical work of experiments without the frustration of being a primary investigator. The difficulty comes with the sheer number of experiments being run at any one time and the broad range of experiments Aascha needs to be able to conduct expertly. Having technology that is easy to use, and supports her to move through the experiments efficiently is crucial.
LabChart’s latest version of the PV Loop Analysis Module includes new features designed to give you precise and accurate measurements of right and left ventricular contractility.
For a procedure like pressure-volume loops (PV Loops), Aascha relies on Millar catheters to get the cleanest recording, and LabChart for the simplest processing and analysis.
“The PV workflow in LabChart is the only thing I would use to analyze PV data,” Aascha says, “It’s straightforward. I don't have to remember all the steps of the analysis because they’ve lovingly put it all there to work through step-by-step.”
“There are enough other things I need to remember, meetings, other experiments, the actual PV procedure…without worrying about missing part of the analysis.”
With the new MPVS Duo and PV Loop 2.6 update, support has been extended from conductance-calibrated PV research to admittance as well, with setup, recording, and analysis all combined in a single package. The aim, as always, is to make science easier.
“I don’t think we’d get through all of the procedures we do if we didn’t have the ADInstruments
The MPVS Duo is designed to improve your workflow in both the training and data collection phases for both small and large animal pressure-volume research.
systems; we use them every day,” Aascha says, “I don’t think there’s a day that I don’t use PowerLab or LabChart, whether it’s for performing a procedure or doing analysis or monitoring recovery.”
By examining what she found fulfilling about research, Aascha was able to chart her own path. It’s a challenging role, but one where Aascha thrives. “I got very lucky finding a team that let me be challenged,” Aascha says, “I’m not pigeonholed. And since we’ve taken the step from basic research into preclinical and now onto translational research, we get to expand our skills, our knowledge, and our collaborations even further.”
