It's good to have dated a Biochemist!

Thanks to Cheryl for translating this Neupogen jargon:

Jargon: Neupogen is a granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF): Colony-stimulating factors are glycoproteins which act on hematopoietic cells by binding to specific cell surface receptors and stimulating proliferation, differentiation commitment, and some end-cell functional activation.

Translation: Neupogen is a protein that has sugars attached to it (that is what 'glyco' means...and for your purpose, really not useful information b/c what you are given does not have the sugars on it as E.coli cannot make proteins with these sugars hanging off them). The way it works is that it stimulates the cells in the bone marrow, hematopoietic cells, to produce more white blood cells (granulocytes). The way it stimulates the cells is that it goes through a 'cell signaling' process...think of this as a chain reaction.....The neupogen is floating around, it binds on the outside of the cell to a receptor (think of a key fitting into a lock). The receptor is changed in a way that it sends a signal to the interior of the cell and tells the cell's machinery to make white blood cells.