Allen's iGEM Experiences

The end of iGEM for me?

It sucks that I am here at college right now writing this. I haven’t blogged in a very long time, but I think I should at least write the ending of iGEM. iGEM has been one of the best experiences ever!! I learned so much about cell movement. The knowledge gained is much better than the $2000 we earned, but that money can help buy books. :D iGEM has really made me realize that I want to go persue research in the future. I will really miss being in the lab, why can’t summer just be longer? I’ll still be back on Fridays and the weekends though, so it’s not too bad. 2 1/2 days in the lab, instead of 5, so work can still be done!! I have this feeling that I will either clone more parts or analyze more data!!

7/30

AYNUR!!! One of the most funny person ever!! Who ever thought science jokes could be so FUNNY! Today was a fun relaxing day, BUT tomorrow, back to work!!! TIME to race to the finish line! Three weeks left for me,but some of you got more time. I think I’m still coming back on Fridays and weekeds though!

7/27

Our daily schedule:

Take care of dicty

Clone stuff

Microscopes

Lunch?

7/21

Finally we see moving cells and glowing cells. Some for the constructs we put into dicty didnt fluoresce red with it had RFP. Maybe dicty dont like our crazy brake or accelerating proteins?

7/20

Microscope assay finally at last! Time to see which constructs make dicty go extremely fast or no movement. Other than that nothing else new going on really.

7/16

If you want perfect mini preps, you have to do the Aynur way. Although I only nano dropped two samples, I got a 490 something for the first one and 350 something for the second one. You just have to wait four minutes after adding P2 buffer, wash with PB twice, spin an extra time after getting rid of PE the first time, and most importantly USE A CENTRIFUGE, NO VACCUMS SORRY! This way takes longer though, but if you want the most plasmid possible its the way to go.

7/15

More clonning, more constructs! One fluorescent microscope thing came today. By Friday we should be able to watch the dicty move!!

7/13

All I have to say, WHEN ARE THE FLUORESCENT MICROSOPES COMING?!?!!? We have to see if our constructs work in dicty!

7/9

Oliver tells us that he sees something about the fruiting bodies of the dicty, but all I see are just the same thing. There are big circles, some deformed, big, small, with little tree like things sticking out. There were some with none of these tree like things, but Oliver said that it was like one in a million dicty that would do this, so that means it is not our constructs that stopped them from growing.. We should of bought that lotto ticket instead, so we can get that money for funding! Anyways, I looked through all of those plates, and I found all the same stuff. We also doing A LOT of coloning until the microsopes come. We need those microscopes to get more results!!! Make it come already!

7/8

Today, after I stored my Gateway LR transformation plates in the incubation room, I walked by and saw Aynur, Cathy, and Ryan L. They were in front of this gigantice machine, known as the facs machine. This machine is use to count cells and see how much it fluoresces. Transwell is an easy concept to understand, but Aynur says its VERY hard to do. I’m going to visit the other team more to learn mroe about thier projects. Even though if we are split up into two teams, I would still like to know what the other team is doing. Also, Aynur told me not to be so SHY about everythign and be more social. I agree with that 100%. Aynur is like my “buddy,” even though I’m not on team HL-60.

7/7

Today we learned about microscopy. Orion knew SO much about the microscopes, every last detail. He even told us he loved microscopes. After learning about all this microscope stuff, Katja taught us how to make a movie of our cells. The cells looked as if it was standing there not moving at all, but when the camera took pictures every 10 seconds, we actually got to see the cells MOVE! Now time for some REAL data. It was hard work making all of those constructs, so now its time to see if our constructs work in dicty. We need the fluorescent microscopes though, AND THEY STILL HAVENT ARRIVED YET!! I can’t wait to make some really cool movies on dicty!!

7/3

I’m all about working fast and efficently. Today almsot no one showed up to UCSF, so there was no holding me back. I can’t wait till we start working individually. We will have to finish our own thing at our own pace. I want to get assigned many tasks, so we can get things done faster. We don’t have much time to just doing one experiment at a time. Today I showed up at 9 and no one was around. It felt so empty. By 1, Cathy, Edna, and Ethan showed up. We did transformations. If I had to set up those 30 ligations myself, it would be some crazy book keeping. Like always, Cathy and I are like one of the last people to leave the lab. there is so much more to write in my notebook! Cathy and I like to get work done in bulk so we can see some sucessful results!

7/2

We did gel purifications today. When we were at school, it took FOREVER to do these purifications, because we didn’t know what we were suppose to do, maybe. All lab work seems to be a lot easier at UCSF. I think its because we got a lot more space and some fancy equipment. A very important piece that we need didnt appear to be cut, so we have to redo that tomorrow. It’s more important to do our best on the project than have a day off, that’s why I choose to not hav a day off.

THANKS CATHY FOR HELPING ME SET UP SOME LIQUID CULTURES AND DIGESTS! When working alone I can get work done pretty fast, but when I work with Cathy, work gets done even FASTER! She wanted to wait for all the rookies to leave before leaving herself. Also Ryan Q waited for Cathy. That’s what the vets do! Even though I knew what to do, she just took over and helped me finish. :D