Allen's iGEM Experiences

The end of iGEM for me?

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:54:26 -0400

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

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:26:01 -0400

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

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:32:52 -0400

Our daily schedule:

Take care of dicty

Clone stuff

Microscopes

Lunch?

7/21

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:48:45 -0400

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

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:52:31 -0400

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

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:46:22 -0400

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

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:11:21 -0400

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

7/13

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:45:44 -0400

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

7/9

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:22:50 -0400

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

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:29:10 -0400

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

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:14:43 -0400

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!!

UMMMM FUN!! Total combined, Ethan and I did 116 mini preps,...

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:08:56 -0400

UMMMM FUN!! Total combined, Ethan and I did 116 mini preps, digested it and ran a gel! Now thats what you call BULK work. The labeling already takes 30 minutes!!

Who knew labeling setting up 116 liquid cultures would take 2.5...

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:36:39 -0400

Who knew labeling setting up 116 liquid cultures would take 2.5 hours? Not me. I thought I was just going to be at UCSF for about 30 minutes today, but it ended up taking 2.5 hours.

7/3

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:41:00 -0400

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

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:53:15 -0400

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

7/1

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:08:41 -0400

So, LAB WORK makes time go by SO fast, but I love it! We did mini preps to prepare plasmid with our PARTS fused into it. We will put it in to dictys and see what happens. When I’m in the lab, I never knew that I can stand so long. If my feet hurts, that certainly means I’ve been standing FOREVER!

I think research is fun, because we get to do what WE want to do. We need mroe cool parts to try, and I think I may have one. Only third day of real lab work and we are getting a lot of things done. Clonning parts NON STOP so we can test them in dicty. That’s why as we are finishing parts, we need newer and cooler parts to test.

Today, when I made my gel, I think i sunk my combs to deep and when we ran our gel, my samples just ran under the gel ot of the hole. I had to redo all of the digests, and I still left when everyone else left! That’s some incredible multitasking. Tomorrow is gonna a cool day! DICTY TRANSFORMATIONS!

6/30

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:27:54 -0400

It felt really weird getting out at 500 today. It seemed too early, but if I stayed at UCSF, there would be nothing else to do. Oliver keeps wanting us to brainstorm even MORE newer ideas tha we can test. It must be cool though, otherwise its not worth trying, so Oliver showed us a website were we can MAYBE look for some cool parts to use. Since home is borign and there is nothing to do, I’m trying to look for parts, but rught now I’m blogging for a few.

Today we did mini preps and finished in decent time, cause we got out early. We are like mini prep machines. Tomorrow there are even MORE mini preps to do. By the end of the summer, I will be a mini prep EXPERT.

DICTY TRANSFORMATION tomorrow! The whole team must know how to do this, or we will never get our brakes adn accelerators to work in dictys.

6/29

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:14:03 -0400

I find out im on the DICTY TEAM!!! I think Dicty’s are good organisms to work with, because they do reproduce fast and most importantly they can MOVE!!

Today I stayed until 830. We had a lot to do. I’m pretty sure that we will have stay long hours for the rest of the summer! I don’t mind though, because I want to have the BEST project at MIT. Time to WORK REALLY HARD for the rest of the summer. I enjoy lab work though, so I’m willing to stay as long as I need to!

6/25

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:06:00 -0400

Today we did our presentation of our ideas. Our group seemed to be the best prepared with all the materials that we wanted to present. BEST PRESENTATION STYLE!! Good job red team! We worked extremely well together when we presented. Everyone knew what they were saying!! Arthur and Aynur coached us REALLY well. Edna and Ryan worked like a team, so did me and Cathy. Cathy and I was constantly chatting to come up with answers for all the questions that the experts had.

The other teams did well also, hence black team winning most creative idea and blue team winning the most likely to suceed ideas. (I think it was intentionaly planned, so everyone WINS!) We got free ice cream to go along with it so it was a plus.

After ice cream we ran our gels and split our dictys. Our gel looked a little weird, but there were positive constructs. I then went home with a head ache (I think I wasn’t thinking enough thats why).

Our beautiful picture of how the the cell turns the signal of a...

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:11:20 -0400

Our beautiful picture of how the the cell turns the signal of a ligand to make lamelipodia for the cell to move.