Science Stops for No Holiday
At Local Biotech Labs, Christmas Was Quiet Day for Research
By Michael S. RosenwaldWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, December 26, 2006; Page D01
Tuberculosis did not take the day off to mark Christmas. Neither did cancer. Or arthritis. And so neither did Rama Raghunandan, a scientist in Rockville.
Yesterday morning, as millions of people around the world were unwrapping gifts, Raghunandan was alone in her lab at CytImmune Sciences, feeding cells that may one day help produce new drugs. Her white Honda minivan was the only vehicle in the parking lot. Her family and gifts were at home waiting for her.
"You can think of them as babies," Raghunandan said, not about her family but about her cells. "They need to be fed and cleaned. That's something we can't stop doing."
Rank-and-file scientists like Raghunandan make up the backbone of Montgomery County's thriving biotech sector, home to more than half of the state's 360 bioscience firms. Despite all the high-tech gadgetry that hums and buzzes in a modern biotech company's laboratory, projects depend on a human being to be there to administer solutions, measure reactions or just plain wait. This is the painstaking, sometimes monotonous, early stage work that one day -- perhaps a decade away -- will produce a drug.
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