from now on the blog entries are gonna get a bit boring. i'll focus on the summary of what i did everyday.
so this was my day 2.
- jamie made me to spin down keeth's samples. i learnt to use the centrifuge machine, both the big and small ones. haven't touched the super big ones, hope can get to use it sooner.
- forgot to mention yesterday asad taught me what's autoclaving. boxes with tapes with black bands should only be opened with a flame on.
- jamie taught me to sterilize everything potentially contaminated by bacteria after use with ethanol. ethanol's really handy. lalala. good stuff.
- small plastic tubes are in the cupboard under usheer's bench.
- jamie's bench is a dustbin. dump everything there. (joking) btw jamie's really strict. i was wondering if he's a post doc in houry's lab. i always thought he's just a grad student.
- asad taught me how to do miniprep. got to learn all the essential steps for DNA purification protocols. just follow the protocol everything will be fine. Elution buffer is just tris buffer.
- asad taught me how to pour an agarose gel. 1% gel needs 0.5 gram of agarose powders, 50ml 1*TEA buffer, mix well, microwave 1 min, stop when boiling is seen, cool it under tap water, add EtBr which is very carcinogenic, then pour into the grid with combs in already.
- dye addition can be done on parafilm. learnt to take a pic of the gel.
- learnt to use different freezers and fridges.
that's basically what i've learnt for the whole day. sounds interesting right... sigh... houry's lab's really hard-working. i stayed back until 6. i didn't manage to sit down for the whole afternoon, my legs hurt so much and my brain's so packed and filled up with information. very very tired. i bet i'd be aging faster during this summer. i got to do some more self-study on cloning. jamie's gonna get back to me after tmr, after he finishes with his RavA presentation.
i almost fell asleep again this morning during the group meeting. goodness me i should always sleep as early as possible. this time i was gonna fall asleep right under the prof's nose! T_T but the meeting was really boring. the prof and guillaume went for a 2-day conference, so they were reporting to us the current useful info on chaperones. that was just boring... maybe it's cos i'm not really doing any related stuff, so i wouldn't be able to appreciate the info...
i appreciate asad's kindness very much. without him i wouldn't be able to learn so much stuff in just a few days. will thank him in person when i leave the lab. thanks a lot...
4 comments:
The agarose part caught my attention, that sounded like pharmacy compounding, which I do as a pharmacy tech. What's agarose used for?
oh, we use that for running plasmids, basically DNA/RNA
Is it a pain to have to make that? I would think they'd have stuff like that pre-made, unless it's part of the learning experience.
agarose gels are really really easy to make, much easier than polyacrylamide gels.
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