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Week 6 - Presentations
Submitted by Chelsea Edgmont on July 20, 2009 - 4:28pm
This week we gave our midway presentations. I spoke about what I had accomplished so far including sampling, DNA extraction, and stable isotope probing. I also talked about how I was having troubles with my PCR and how I planned to fix my problems. I was nervous on Monday and Tuesday because I knew we didn't have very long to present our information but I still wanted to give as much data as I could without over loading the audience. I was also nervous because I don't have much data at this point in time and i was worried that my presentation would not be interesting. On Monday, I ran some PCRs and gels to check my processes and make sure there wasn't something wrong with the PCR itself. First I ran a PCR on the sofulobus DNA to see if the DNA was clean enough to amplify. Because the archea DNA amplified the bacterial DNA should amplify because the Ethidium Bromide and Cescium Chloride has been removed. Then i ran a PCR of one of my samples and one of Suzanne's samples that has known DNA and both amplified. This was exciting; however, we still had to get the 12C and 13C to amplify together. We did a nested PCR with the DGGE prorocol and the 12C amplified. We were getting closer to the results we wanted but we were not quite there. Suzanne then spun the SIP again and recovered the bands from only tehe 2:20 pm 1 mM sample. The bands were cleaned and run with a DGGE protocol but without nesting them. This will hopefully prove more successful than what wehave been trying the in past.
This week was kind of slow because we had alot of waiting for PCRs that ended up not working and alot of waiting for the 24 hours centrifuge to be done.
On Saturday, Ethan took some of the interns to Mt. Hood to hike. We went on the Mazama Trail. I really enjoyed the trip. We was quiet exciting but also pretty exhausting. We hiked through trees, over dirt, and through the snow. We went glacading over the patches of snow. Glacading is sliding on your feet or sitting down over the snow. We hiked 3000 feet and got to see a lot of really beautiful sights including valleys and meadows full of wild flowers. I had lots of fun.
