Hmm….I havent posted in a while, probably because not much to say except cloning cloning cloning. We’re pretty caught up on the cloning, just waiting on those microscopes. I can’t wait to make movies and actually see our progress. I think once the microscopes come, we’ll have loads of data to show at the weekly meetings…hopefully.
Tomorrow is July 4th which is just around the corner and i can’t wait for the BBQ. I’ve never actually had beer can chicken but i cant wait to taste Ben’s, the reigning champ.
The other independence I’m referring to is lab work. This week team Dicty went through most of the steps we would need to do to create and tests all our constructs in Dicty. I presume we’ll need next week to finish learning it all before we can really be independent. I have to say, this past week has been somewhat hectic. Whenever we did lab work, I was watching over the new kids so i couldn’t get as much work done myself as I would like to. Luckily, Oliver understands this and in advance doesn’t plan to assign me loads of work at the moment. I never knew watching over people doing labwork was so draining. I wonder how Mr C manages his class of ~30 when i only have 4 people to watch over. I can’t wait to get our individual assignments of the project, then I can go into full output mode.
Another thing i was working on yesterday was a “Day in the Life of a Young Scientist” as Raquel called it. I think it will be quite lame but ill edit it and put it together. Hopefully it won’t be too big to upload to my blog.
So Yesterday was the start of the pure wetlab-ness. I didn’t have time to do too much stuff because i had to over-see the new iGEM students. David called me the “pit boss.” I was able to fit in all the work i was assigned though. I think this photo sums up the first day of wetlab: my departure (and cathy). This is PM not AM, i do not arrive at such a time haha
So today we got our buddy assignments and what cells we would be working with. i got placed in the dictyostelium group along with Alex, Allen, Edna and Ethan. I think we came up with a good plan and we’ll see results soon! I want success!
Now that all we’re going to be doing is wetlab, i can predict my summer schedule:
1-Wake up
2-Labwork
3-Go home and sleep
4-Repeat steps one through three
So today we presented our ideas and our group, the Blue Team, won:
Most Likely To Succeed
The title may not of been exactly worded like that but i think this is true too =]
Ben and Oliver liked the number of constructs we thought of and how interchangeable they were with one another (i.e. brake parts could be used for acceleration as well). I was nervous before presenting as i usually am but once i start talking i feel fine. I was actually a bit more nervous today because i didn’t get a chance to go over my presentation with david or iowa in the morning because we ran out of time and had to go to the meeting. But there weren’t many questions after my part so i guess i presented it clearly enough.
I think most of the groups had the more or less the same ideas for brakes and accelerators but every group differed at steering. I love our teams idea for steering but i think the black teams idea is pretty cool too. Leave it to Jacinto to think of the craziest ideas.
Meeting pictures!
Black Team
Audience
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Blue Team
So today we had our subgroups to think of ideas for the project. My group consisted of:
Iowa, David, Bethany, Eric and Katja
I think we came up with some great ideas but you’ll have to attend the meeting to hear them! I especially like our idea of cell steering. The logic of it is cool to me. Heres some photos of today, because everyone loves photos!
Our leader
i don’t even know…
No one was suppose to look…but Allen did!
Two chairs for a very tall man
Idea parts list
We had to deliver an aerial message to the group below
Keep Out!
Look at what genetics can do
Albino Dictyostelium…i think so!
Now that we’re almost done with the papering reading portion of iGEM (although it is never really over), I’ve learned how to read the papers a lot better. The last paper we read was pretty clear to me and i understood all their experiments when i read it at home. It did help a lot that the buddies’ lectures included things that were in the paper. I’m not sure if it was the same last year because i wasn’t too good at reading the papers back then. I think my interest has increased since then as well. I only hope that this reading will help my reading in english class - my worst subject.
Although i’m a bit disappointed that we wont be working with yeast (since i’m use to working with it), i’m always open to learn new techniques and how to handle different cells. I must admit that cel movement videos are very cool! I’m use to seeing results in the form of graphs but seeing and actual cell perform a certain action as your results is really cool. I hope we can get some cool videos throughout the summer when we apply our own constructs to the dicty or neutrophils.
Raquel was so enthusiastic about the protocols that she broke out into song and dance.
This is totally un-related to iGEM but i found this site recently that i find endlessly amusing. All you do is play along with daft punks song - hard better faster stronger by supplying the words by pressing the keys lol
Enjoy!
Today the new students are doing what we did a lot last summer in the beginning, leaving the cave to eat. They will soon learn to stay in like us. Here is what we ate today!
My lunch
Cathy’s lunch
Jacinto’s lunch
Lunch time for the veterans!
Yesterday i was looking at other peoples blogs and i realized that my blog looked lame so i switched to tumblr today. The first week of lectures is over and only one more to go. i cant wait for the wet lab to begin!
So far we’ve instructed the new students for setting up cultures, minipreps and digests and teaching is pretty fun i’d say. it also tests my knowledge to see if i remember everything.
Being in iGEM the second time around, I notice how much more I understand and how much faster I can understand the papers we read. I’m actually finding them pretty intriguing. I still can’t wait for all the wet lab to begin. I prefer the 6 months in the lab.
We’re into the second day of iGEM and i must say, the structure is different from last year; in a good way. The teaching is definitely structured to help us learn easier.I remember last year the first paper we had to read was related to our project and was like 6 pages. This year the first paper was about GFP, something familiar to us, and was only about 1 1/2 pages.
