Why I Suck at Blogging

I’ve never been the type to openly share my emotions and frustrations. And this semester has been frustrating. However, it has also been extremely rewarding.

After adopting Walker’s phage, I experienced several problems. The first week, I accidentally used the wrong TA. After correcting my mistake, I went through several rounds of purification. My phage had two morphologies- large plaques with halos and small plaques without halos. I went through five rounds of purification to make sure I had one phage. I then began to calculate my titer, and experienced more problems. Once my phage did not lyse at all, and there was contamination on another plate. After making my ten plates, only four of them webbed; the others barely lysed. Luckily I had enough lysate to continue with the procedure. I made my EM grid, and got to look at my phage. After spending fifteen minutes trying to find my phage, the one grid that had it contained a broken film. The picture was too fuzzy to retain an image.

While these events have frustrated me to no end, I have also realized how much I love being in the lab. When I have a bad day, I go and check on my phage. I do not like being vocal about my frustrations because I am determined to overcome them and persevere. I also am not bothered by the failure I have experienced. In my opinion, research is not a pass or fail subject. I am encouraged by the passion I am developing, and I am determined to persevere.

Still trying to figure out what happened

1 Reply

This has been rather confusing. my last two experiments have been a bit interesting, trying to figure out why my phage won’t show up (at all, even at a 10^0 concentration), and whatever my mistake was, it has left me phageless. I went in to do my Electron Microscopy and I broke Dr. Rushing’s perfect record, as she was unable to find any phages, and she had to give up after about 15 minutes of looking.

At this point, my options are very limited. Based on the current trends, my current lysates are all either faulty, contaminated, or simply containing a phage that refuses to grow (even my lysates that are from my purification rounds) and I have actually been forced to start a plaque assay from my original lysate: the one we all made together at the end of september.

It doesn’t matter very much, since we already have the phage we need, but it is just kinda discouraging to have failed like this. Oh well, I’m definitely looking forward to next semester’s lab more, now.

Hope everybody has a great break.

Comment on Meet my friend Amigo! by jadeconnor

I love the name! And I have noticed that the Arthrobacter phage tend to have more angular heads while the M. smeg phage have more round heads. I love how you can see the true morphology of the phage from the electron microscopy. It is really interesting to compare pictures of our phage and note the differences from phage to phage.

Finally!!

Leave a reply

I finally got to see my baby on Wednesday! After going through so much to have one, my phage’s pretty little face presented itself to me through the use of the electron microscope. The titer I used was extremely high, so we had plenty to choose from when we went to take the picture. We were able to find one that was in amazing condition for the image. It has an excellent angular head with a tail approximately twice the length of its head. I am in love.

Comment on Tie between ALS and Genetic Mutations by sierramiller

In regards to the noncoding DNA, I would look up the ENCODE project. It is an offshoot of the Human Genome Project that shows significant amounts of noncoding DNA that scientists and researchers have long considered junk actually has effects on gene expression, translation, and many other cellular functions. As opposed to the 2% of DNA previously considered important, this study shows that at least 20% of DNA is vital.