December 7, 2011
Today we did an experiment but I'm not exactly sure what the name of it was. We've done it before. It was a little tedious but it was interesting. The goal was the take this positively charged nanoparticle and place it in a cell. The significance of this process was that the nanoparticle was a polymer with DNA as opposed to a neutral polymer. This nanoparticle is able to produce a lot more Luciferase. Luciferase is apparently good for the body which was why it was the goal for the experiment. Then we added on to that experiment to calculate the data of how much luciferase was actually produced. We started with 100ml of Luciferase. Then we added 20ml of DNA, mixed the two together, and then placed the tube that contained the mixture into this machine that quickly calculated the amount. We did several trials. But all the trials ended up for some reason not working. Every trial showed a very miniscule amount of Luciferase which was not supposed to happen. JM thinks that maybe the cells had gone bad somehow. He said that the cells originally looked strange in the beginning, so that might have been the reason why the experiment didn't work. Of course it's a little upsetting when the experiment that you're working on for hours doesn't work, but it's unavoidable and it will continue to happen. That was pretty much all we did today.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Day 20
December 6, 2011
It was a very interesting day! We started with cell culture. I've been this before also in my Wednesday lab. It was interesting that they use similar techniques for completely different purposes. It was fun because Kellin let me do the entire procedure while he just told me what to do. We put 2mL of media (a mixture of chemicals and cells) into a tube and then placed it in an incubator for 10 minutes. Then we placed the tube in a centrifuge. The centrifuge rapidly spins the tube around which somehow makes all the cells settle to the bottom of the tube. We brought the tube back into the hood and removed the remaining solution but left the cells in the bottom. We placed 4ml of new media into the tube with cells and pipetted through several times to chop the cells and mix them with the media. Then we moved the solution into a different container that we could place under the microscope. Once we finished that, we made another gel gradient. While we were waiting for the gel to harden, he and the rest of the lab were just playing around with dry ice. He showed me what would happen if he put a frozen cube of CO2 in room temperature water. It boiled and looked like fog. It was really cool. Then he explained that if you place a small amount of water in a syringe and reduce the pressure enoughm the water will boil at room temperature! He attempted trying this but ultimately failed. He told me that boiling points differ depending on the altitude. In Denver which is high in the mountains, water has a lower boiling point and it takes a longer amount of time to boil something there. Then, Ms. Rein came to visit my lab for a few minutes. But it was ashame because we had already finished everything we wanted to do that day, so Ms. Rein didn't get to see me do anything.
It was a very interesting day! We started with cell culture. I've been this before also in my Wednesday lab. It was interesting that they use similar techniques for completely different purposes. It was fun because Kellin let me do the entire procedure while he just told me what to do. We put 2mL of media (a mixture of chemicals and cells) into a tube and then placed it in an incubator for 10 minutes. Then we placed the tube in a centrifuge. The centrifuge rapidly spins the tube around which somehow makes all the cells settle to the bottom of the tube. We brought the tube back into the hood and removed the remaining solution but left the cells in the bottom. We placed 4ml of new media into the tube with cells and pipetted through several times to chop the cells and mix them with the media. Then we moved the solution into a different container that we could place under the microscope. Once we finished that, we made another gel gradient. While we were waiting for the gel to harden, he and the rest of the lab were just playing around with dry ice. He showed me what would happen if he put a frozen cube of CO2 in room temperature water. It boiled and looked like fog. It was really cool. Then he explained that if you place a small amount of water in a syringe and reduce the pressure enoughm the water will boil at room temperature! He attempted trying this but ultimately failed. He told me that boiling points differ depending on the altitude. In Denver which is high in the mountains, water has a lower boiling point and it takes a longer amount of time to boil something there. Then, Ms. Rein came to visit my lab for a few minutes. But it was ashame because we had already finished everything we wanted to do that day, so Ms. Rein didn't get to see me do anything.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Day 19
November 30, 2011
Today was more of a boring day. I didn't get to do any hands-on things. Seungha and I only watched him do a few experiments. He didn't really have much planned out for us, so he tried to think of a lab for us to do. So he tried to set up, but the equiment was occupied by others for most of the time. So he decided that he would show us autoclaving again, which is a machine that sterylizes pipet tips. But when we arrived at the autoclaving room, the machine was already in use. So we went back to the lab and discussed the final presentation for a little while. He tried to plan out when we should start working on the presentation and how he will help us. The problem was that I'm not even doing the presentation on my Wednesday project so he's not going to be very helpful to me. But this got me thinking about when I should start working on my presentation and talking to Kellin about what I should do. This was really all we did that day so he let us out early. We walked to a cafe in Latrobe Hall and just stayed there until it was time to go.
Today was more of a boring day. I didn't get to do any hands-on things. Seungha and I only watched him do a few experiments. He didn't really have much planned out for us, so he tried to think of a lab for us to do. So he tried to set up, but the equiment was occupied by others for most of the time. So he decided that he would show us autoclaving again, which is a machine that sterylizes pipet tips. But when we arrived at the autoclaving room, the machine was already in use. So we went back to the lab and discussed the final presentation for a little while. He tried to plan out when we should start working on the presentation and how he will help us. The problem was that I'm not even doing the presentation on my Wednesday project so he's not going to be very helpful to me. But this got me thinking about when I should start working on my presentation and talking to Kellin about what I should do. This was really all we did that day so he let us out early. We walked to a cafe in Latrobe Hall and just stayed there until it was time to go.
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