Week 4

Hello. I can't believe it's already the beginning of March!

I've enjoyed reading all the posts that you guys have put up. All of these internships sound so cool and so interesting. Now, here's my week. This week was actually pretty busy. I feel that my internship has been preparing me for the real world; I even work practically full hours (8AM-5PM) 3 days a week...and soon maybe even everyday. I am going to take part in another project, not related to my SRP, that has to do with sequencing some genomes with a new method. Although it isn't a part of my SRP, I think it will be a good experience to have.

Monday: I ran some gels with my mentor Naomi. Lately we have been re-testing old data and also some new primers to see if they are amplifying correctly. I also ran a PCR to test some of the primers again.

Tuesday: I finally took my biosafety protection course and I passed. Now, I can officially work in the lab (even though I already have been under supervision) still with supervision but a little bit more independently.

Wednesday: This day went by really fast and was packed with a whole bunch of stuff although it may not really sound like it. My mentor and I both came in a little late so we only had time to make a gel before going into the weekly lab meetings. For this lab meeting, Dr. Yu (who is also a high school friend of my dad) gave the talk on his data with Tandem Array Genes (TAGs). Although he explained exactly what they are, I still have trouble understanding. What I understood is that these TAGs are take up a large proportion of genomes and they are a reservoir of genetic redundancy. I will look into the purposes of these TAGs and how they are useful so tune in next week. I also made some 100 base-pair (bp) ladders that are used in the gels but no one seemed to know exactly how to make it so we experimented a mixture and tested it in a gel along with some samples. There was also a power outage in the middle of the day (apparently it happens more often than you would think) but good thing there's a back-up generator since not everything turned off. I also learned to disassemble and clean pipettes and reassemble them. A dirty pipette may be the reason why it cannot pipette the exact amount correctly which could lead to inaccuracy in an experiment (and we wouldn't want that, right?)

Friday: I ran another PCR testing one of the samples that I ran on Wednesday. Then, I made a gel and ran the PCR samples that my mentor Naomi made on Thursday. I also cleaned some more pipettes and made some more 100 bp ladders.

Well, that was my week. Hope you guys have another great week! Bye~~