Hello again!
This week I still don't have much to do in the lab. The experiments I will be helping out with will happen in the summer, so besides getting training in the vivarium there won't be too much for me to do right now. I did get to empty the dishwasher today (I know, super exciting).
Later this week I will help the lab supervisor make a DNA ladder used for the gel electrophoresis. This is basically a bunch of known DNA fragments that have been cut by enzymes to specific lengths. As the gel runs, these fragments will spread out, and as they are made of known DNA, it is known how they should spread out, so we can see if the gel has run long enough. Previously the lab had bought these ladders premade, but they are trying to make their own now to cut costs. More on that later in the week!
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Because I am not doing much today, I took some pretty pictures of the lab. In order: my work space, pictures of mice, the cold room, the tiny centrifuge, the dry ice bin, two of the large freezers, and some pipettes.
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Hello to everyone who scrolled through all those pictures. Happy Friday!
On Wednesday I helped the lab manager make the DNA ladder. It failed because the DNA did not get digested (broken up) by the restriction enzymes. We think the problem is either that we didn't wait long enough for the DNA to be broken by the enzyme, or that we didn't use enough enzyme.
Today we are trying to wait for the DNA to be broken up for 4 hours, and then in another trial for 6 hours. If that doesn't work we will add twice as much enzyme per microgram of DNA. Hopefully we will get it working today and then we can make a full batch of DNA ladder on Monday. If it still doesn't work we will try waiting 16 hours for the DNA to be broken up by leaving it overnight on Monday night, and running it in a gel on Monday morning. We also found out that we might need to change the ratio of DNA to loading dye, so we will look into that too. It's the first time the lab has tried to make their own DNA ladder, so we have a lot to figure out.
Anyway, I will give an update on whether we got it working on Monday. Have a nice weekend!
