Week 1- Familiarizing myself with the lab and project

This week has been a lot of reading, reading, re-working PCR, and more reading.  I feel somewhat accomplished as I can say I have a grasp on the project I am involved in, and my individual role.  I am involved in designing more efficient and cheaper real-time sensor array platforms that do not require flourescence labeling.  These sensory arrays will hopefully be applicable to environmental sampling.  In order to test the quality and efficiency of these sensors, target DNA (both double and single-stranded) samples need to be made. 

Genomic DNA has already been extracted and so this week's goal was to amplify different genes of a particular enteropathogenic strain of E. coli with PCR.  These genes were chosen based on either 1) their detection of E. coli and 2) their differentiation of virulence.  The gel electrophoresis did not show PCR product for one of the genes, and so measures were taken (making new primer and template solutions) until PCR was successful.

The majority of the week however, was familiarizing myself with background reading on microarrays, impedence real-time sensors, and protocols for extracting RNA and DNA from environmental samples.

The highlight of my week was holding the sensor chip that contains 16 gold microelectrodes, because yes... it is real. :)

-Vena