Lpath Therapeutics, Inc.

I lean into the bulky metal of the back door until it creaks stubbornly open. A faint shimmer of early morning light tiptoes a few feet inside but dares to venture no further into the eerie glow of UV lamps. I must be the first one here. My pumps echo through the chilled hush of the lab as I go about waking up the overhead lights. The tissue culture hood hums groggily when I flip its power switch. I know, I yawn, me too. I turn the corner toward my bench. My pipettes resemble admirals—with their navy jackets and crisp white stems—perched stiffly in their bracket, overlooking the battalion of disposable plastic tips ordered row by row in their respective boxes. I muse at how quickly all my careful organization will be undone. The staccato of my boss’ Italian accent through the door to the carpeted office domain yanks me back to focus. I crease back a fresh page in my data entry notebook and snap on a pair of gloves, knowing their revoltingly artificial latex smell will persist long after I finish work. My colleagues begin to arrive. Lowell is the best at mornings; she breezes past with a wickedly contagious smile that crinkles around her nose and dark eyes. Most others bustle in with a nod or quiet smile. Only Viet saunters toward his back corner desk at 9:30am with wily bed-hair and apparently all the time in the world. Soon the lab is transformed. To my right whirs the jackhammering of the vacuum pump, occasionally pierced by the ear-splitting screech of the sonicator. From my left wafts the gag-inducing musk of bacterial cultures and the bleach used to choke it. I stand in the middle. The microfuge tubes I have busied myself preparing let out a cheerful thwop! as I pop them open with my thumb. Someone turns on the radio, but even from its authoritative seat on the top shelf, its struggle to be heard is futile. I head through the adjoining portion of the lab to scrounge for more reservoirs in the crowded mishmash of cardboard boxes on the supply shelf. My pumps skitter hurriedly back across the tile when they halt. Viet’s bench. Eyesore. I half-heartedly pick up a stack of dusty papers and hold it sneeringly at arm’s length. Viet catches me. With a knowing smirk he chuckles, “Have at it, Sunshine.” I toss some questionable looking tubes and stack the papers, barely making a dent in all his clutter but finding three calculators in the process. I claim the best one for myself. When I finish the first step of my assay, I zip through the carpeted office cubicles to fill my travel mug with a steaming portion of golden chai and steal out the back door again. I pause. I let the afternoon sun seep into my skin—reviving it—before I start my slow stroll around the back parking lot. My favorite spot looks north to where the green, unkempt hills are free of office buildings. Only the distant rush of the highway tries to interrupt my quiet… until my timer beeps and its back to work.