Poster time!

Today we get to work on our poster, which is a big help since our whole group (of 2 people) will be out of town this weekend. We have some good ideas, and our poster is going to be awesome!!

Almost there…

We’re almost done, just a few more genes! I’m excited to see what we’re doing after spring break. I’m also excited for spring break, especially after this week. I’ve had a test everyday, and I’ve done nothing but study all week. I have my last test tomorrow in chemistry, that I am nowhere near ready for, and I’m ready to just go home and sleep.

Done :D

After many frustrations and headaches, I have finally finished my annotations. I had a gene called by GeneMark, that was so small and had no Blast hits whatsoever that I called as nonexistent. It can be frustrating not knowing if a gene exists or not, then having to decide whether to call it, or ignore it and extend the previous gene. I’m glad to be done, and I can’t wait to see what conclusions my partners came to and to see what the genes code for!

Me+confusing computer programs=epic fail

I’m not very good at all these computer programs. I think I was better at the wet lab. Hopefully, I’ll get more used to them as the semester goes on and I hope they get easier to use. I definitely need more practice (especially on the genes that go backwards) before we start annotating the actual genome. We’ll have to wait and see what happens!

New lab for a new semester

Wow. From what we’ve done in lab so far, it looks like this semester is going to be quite different. I’m not exactly computer savvy, so all the new programs are definitely going to take a while to get used to. I think it’ll be fun though. I can’t wait to see how the genome turns out!!
P.S. our ginger group presentations are going to rock!!

All done!!

The week before Thanksgiving, I finished all the DNA procedures. We ran the gel, I did the EM. I can’t believe we’re done with lab now. It feels so weird. We’ll see what happens next semester!

purification

This week in lab, we started the DNA purification. Tuesday, we isolated the DNA with the columns, which was a tad bit difficult to say the least, and then we quantified it. Yesterday, we got see our phages with the electron microscope, which was really cool. Today in open lab we get to start the digest. We’re getting closer and closer!

pellet

Today in open lab, we centrifuged our lysate-nuclease mixture and isolated the pellet. Tuesday we will isolate the DNA from the pellet and do the columns. We’re making progress!

Side story! When I plated my lysate from the 10 plates to calculate the titer, I noticed that there were plaques that were smaller than all the others. Dr. Adair and I looked at it closely and the small plaques looked like the bigger ones, only smaller, so we decided to put the plate in the incubator for another day to see if the small plaques would get bigger. They did. Now I know that they were my plaques and not contamination. And since I realized that I hadn’t posted any pictures of my plaques yet, we took pictures and here they are:

DNA isolation

Today, I got to isolate the DNA from my phage. We had to incubate for 30 minutes, with the lysate and nuclease mixture. Then it has to sit out at room temperature for an hour. So right now, I’m sitting here in lab waiting for the one hour to pass, so I can continue on.

lysate titer

Today I plated the lysate I got from the 10 plate. I did a serial dilution up to -9, then plated from -5 to -9. I hope it worked, so tomorrow I can calculate the titer and start working with the DNA!!!!