I heart DNA……

I heart DNA……
This week was a big learning experience for me. We isolated DNA and ran them on gels. Pictures of the gels were then taking using UV light. I am really appreciative of the opportunity to have such great hands on learning experiences such as these; however, I feel like I keep messing up. I feel really bad because either through clumsiness or just plain ignorance keeping messing up things that affect the whole class such as dropping the plates. I wonder if Dr. Rainey regrets letting me in this lab. I can only wonder if these feelings are coming up because of other things going on in my life. I have had a hard time concentrating in school these past two week since my paw paw passed away. I guess I haven’t really had time to grieve properly since school keeps me so busy. Anyways, I’ll move back to what we did this week.
The protocol for how we extracted DNA from the organisms is listed on AirSet. Cells were taking from the plates that were streaked on 1/26/09. I worked with Rachel on this. We used strains 1,2,3,4, 5, and 12.
Also, the protocol for running the DNA on the agarose gel is listed on AirSet. After running the DNA on the gel, pictures were taken using UV light. I worked with my original group on this. Our gel revealed that there was little DNA present, but the DNA that was present ran further on the gel than the other 2 group’s DNA. The DNA might have not been present because in the DNA isolation procedure the cells might have not broken open. Another possible explanation is that endonucleases chewed up the DNA.
The dilution plates from the radiated and unirradiated Golbi-1 soil samples were viewed and analyzed.

THIS BLOG HAD SOMENICE TABLKES OF COMPARISON BUT WORD TABLES DO NOT POST - NEXT TIME SEND TABLES AS A PDF OR JPEG - SORRY


We had an email from AirSet reminding us that it is 4 weeks until the final - I guess we need to start studying the papers and thinking about what we have been doing in lab. This blog is going to be a good resource for studying for the midterm exam. If everyone in class would write detailed blogs this would help us and pass on all the details different people picked up in class or outside of class.