I started by checking the cultures’ morphology under the microscope. About half of them, the ones closest to the door, were already past salvaging. The door had clearly been open for at least a day. I felt a brief pang for each culture as I placed it in the biohazard disposal.
The other half of the cultures were less straightforward. I decided to run a trypan blue count to see if there were any that weren’t stressed beyond repair.
Before I could really get stuck into the work, Nathan arrived. It spoke to how big of a disaster this was that I felt only a twinge of anxiety.
“I got here about—” I checked my watch, “—an hour ago and the incubator door was open. The temp gauge was at thirty degrees.” It had gone back up to thirty-five with the door properly closed. “The humidity was way off, too, but I don’t remember the exact number. I just started doing checks.”
“Trypan blue?” Nathan asked, immediately clocking the seriousness of the situation.
We worked quietly, one of us at each biosafety cabinet. At the end of about thirty minutes, we’d finished our counts and had just two salvageable samples out of the thirty we’d gotten up to. The other incubator with the differentiated stem cells was thankfully unaffected.
“This is not good,” Nathan said when we’d placed the cultures back in the incubator.
“That is an understatement,” I said. “How are we going to expand the cohort now?”
I hadn’t been happy about Lisbeth’s idea, mostly because we were still waiting on giving the subjects their second round of injections. But I’d dutifully worked on the protocol change request documentation with Nathan, and the IRB had approved the change the morning of the gala.
“You said the door was open?” Nathan asked.
“Yes. And I know what you’re thinking, but Anvi wouldn’t leave the door open like that. There has to be something wrong with the latch.” I glared at the perfectly functioning door. Nathan raised his eyebrows. “You can’t just accuse her. Someone could have come in. We should check the keycard logs.”
“I’m sure Lisbeth will want to. She’s going to kill us.” Nathan went to run his hands through his hair, remembered he was wearing PPE, and stopped himself. “Take a break. I’ll clean up.”
I gratefully made my way to the office for a fresh cup of tea. The day was already an enormous mess, but at least the catastrophe had made my first encounter with Nathan less awkward.
Anvi breezed in a few minutes later, right on time. “Good morning! How was the gala? I’m still so pissed I couldn’t go.” Anvi had been babysitting her niece, thank god. I couldn’t imagine if she’d been a witness to me dancing with Gabriel. I would never have heard the end of it.
“Listen, there was a problem over the weekend. Did you see anything strange when you came to check on the cells?”
Anvi’s cheeks colored and her jaw dropped in horror. “Oh my god. Please don’t kill me, but I totally forgot to come. Oh no, did they all die?! I can’t believe I was so stupid!”
I placed a hand on her arm. “Wait. You didn’t come at all?”
“No,” she wailed. “And now the study is ruined, and it’s all my fault.”
I shushed her. “The door was left open on one of the incubators, and I know it was closed when we left on Friday night. So if you didn’t come over the weekend, it has to be a mechanical issue.”
Anvi blanched. “I totally didnotleave a door open, I swear. Dr. Manalo scared the shit out of me about that.”
“Okay, we need to tell him you didn’t come this weekend.” When she looked panicked, I patted her shoulder. I pulled her down the hallway to the prep lab. “Trust me, missing the weekend shift is way better than leaving the door open. Still careless, but better.”
Nathan emerged from the cleanroom looking severe. I nudged Anvi to start talking.
She launched into an apology and explained that she’d forgotten to come. “But only because my niece has hand, foot and mouth disease and my sister is pregnant so she didn’t want to get it too.”
He frowned, then looked over his shoulder at the incubator. He turned back to Anvi. “Don’t miss another weekend shift. I’m going to have to record this in the log.”
She nodded meekly. “It won’t happen again.”
“Now that I know they went two days without feeding, go feed them now. We’ll also need to do visual checks. Mark any with unusual morphology for me to review. But we’ll run afluorescent live/dead assay, too,” Nathan said. Anvi ducked her head and scampered towards the cleanroom.
He leaned against the center island, his arms crossed. “You don’t think she’s lying?”
“No. She told me she hadn’t come in before I said anything about the door being left open.”
“That latch is functioning perfectly,” he said.
I sighed. “Yes. It is.”
