Hey guys!

Still no phage here, but I am retesting my soil samples using the m. smeg, so hopefully there are some promising results when we get back to lab on Monday. Right now, though, it is the little battles I win that I am celebrating. I have been having some trouble with contamination on my plate a while ago. For four plates in a row I had some type of contamination, and most of the time the contamination bacteria looked very similar from plate to plate. The last plate I had with contamination was a couple of weeks ago and I deduced that it was originating from the phage buffer I was using. That week I threw away the contaminated phage buffer and used a fresh container instead. Since then, I have not had any contamination on any of my plates! I don’t think that the lack of contamination stemmed from any altered actions on my part; I have been plating aseptically in the same way. So hopefully my non-contaminated streak continues on into next week and the weeks beyond.

Anyway, I am really excited to see if I have any plaque this week from the m. smeg, since m. smeg seems to be easier to find bacteriophage in. Let’s keep our fingers crossed! Have a great Fall Break y’all!