Today I traveled to the GGC to get the materials to start working . . . but there was much more preparation in store than just grabbing some polymerase and fleeing the scene. Upon arrival Melanie and I immediately set up a binder for the gene I'm working on. The binder is already fat with information, and I haven't even started working! She explained to me why this gene was chosen for screening; afterward we set to finding all the tubes of patient DNA we're going to use.
All the tubes of DNA are kept in a cold room. And I mean cold. After trying to pull singular tubes out of all the different boxes off of different racks off of different shelves, we decided to just take the racks out of the cold room and pull tubes from there. This helped us avoid freezing. Next came the sorting and aliquoting. It was tedious work, but it's so important to get everything sorted correctly. The primers came in around lunch time. My last task was to dilute and aliquot those.
Back at Wofford I went to the lab I'm working in to make sure I had key card access. I surveyed the equipment I'm going to use and pondered how I'm going to get all my work done in the short amount of time I have. Strategy is the name of the game! As with any research project, thinking several steps ahead is a must. I also found out today that I have to do gels after every PCR. This makes sense, and I like making gels. I just have to consult the biology professors again for instructions on what I can use here at Wofford for making and running them. I realized this is a part of real world research: having to accommodate for a different lab in which availability and variety of equipment may vary. This is going to be a learning experience, and I can't wait for it.
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