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Week 1- Introduction and reading... late, I'm sorry!

Unfortunately, like Tyler, I  missed almost all of the first week due to finals at Oregon State University. On top of that I was unable to get my blog set up until today so I am just now posting my week one entry today.

Friday I got to sit down with Brenda and talk about my project and get my reading assignments. She showed me her most recent presentation of her research regarding the protein PHM (which she pronounces "Pim" and frequently calls a "she" : ) I am going to attempt to sum up what she explained to me about it. PHM becomes inactive once the pH gets to about 5. The reason for this is the object of Brenda's research and this was the information the slideshow covered. They are attributing the activity/inactivity to the presence of Copper which is located at two different sites, either of which could be the activating one. CuH is bound by three histidines and CuM is bound by two histidines and a methionine. Based on the configuration and location of CuM, this was thought to have been the activation sight, however once tested, it was found to have no effect. Thus implying CuH is the active Copper. (This is the next step in research, which required more PHM purified for testing)

She gave me a bunch of reading because she is going to be out of town for the next week or so. I dont have much background in biochemistry so after giving me a basic, crash course in the subject, she gave me a text book and some suggested chapters to read over in order to have a basic knowledge of proteins, how they work and their implications. I also received a book specifically on Protein purification which Brenda pointed out the specific techniques and procedures we will be using over the next 10 weeks, including UV absorption and Bradford assays, dialysis, salting-out, Ion exchange chromatography and size chromatography. This will be very helpful in outlining and explaining the ins and outs of what we will be doing and why. To top it off, she gave me two journal publications, (one published by Dr. Blackburn, my senior scientist) both dealing with PHM in order to give me a broader understanding of the protein I will be specifically working with. These publications are going to be challenging to read but hopefully I will be able to get what I need to out of them!