Blog 3: 2/26/16

Hi Everyone!

I hope your week has been going well!

I have some exciting news.

The gels have finally started to work! My mentor, Sampath Rangasamy, and I developed a new PCR Protocol where I tested out four different systems. There were samples that would be mixed with magnesium chloride and a FAST HS dye, without magnesium chloride and FAST HS dye, with magnesium chloride and Robust HS dye, and lastly, without magnesium chloride and Robust HS dye.

Basically, these four different sets allowed me to visualize which system would be the best in producing results for genotyping when I would upload the PCR samples into a gel. I found two that worked best: without magnesium chloride and Fast HS dye and with magnesium chloride and Robust HS dye.

Hopefully, once I conduct more samples I will be able to quickly genotype large sets of samples at a time.

I have also begun research alongside my project where I will be working with zebrafish. I have only just begun my training but mainly I will be injecting a dye into the zebrafish eggs to see if in 72 hours, the fish test positive or negative for the gene we are searching for. In the next week I will gain more knowledge on the exact research I will be conducting and will be able to share more details soon.

Other than that, things have been moving at a fast pace! I have started to work on my article with another intern. We are trying to have the rough draft ready by the end of the next month. The article will mainly be following the same guidelines as our poster presentation. Along with the article, I have been spending some time outside of the lab working on CITI Training. In order to work with the fish, I have to complete training on zebrafish online through a bunch of modules.

I am extremely excited for you guys to hear more about the work I'll be doing in the upcoming weeks.

Stay tuned! :)
Pooja