So Little Time, So Much to Do

The fourth week of the program was a short week where I only worked three days in the lab. During these three days we started the control experiment for the liquid manifold. However, the 24 hour experiment failed once again! It appears that the Labview program for the manifold needs altering to collect the data after 16 hours. This process shall take a while to look through the program thoroughly. So, instead of restarting the 24 hour experiment, I began my side project using the liquid manifold for the pH stat.

This project is meant to assess the time it takes for the system to rebound from changes in the systems pH. From the data collected I am trying to assess if there is any numerical relationship between the rebound times. To make sure about the results gathered I am testing each manipulated pH value’s rebound time three times. This allows the results to be based upon the average of the data and helps in the future with the creation of an equation if there is a numerical relationship. When I was about to start the experiment, we discovered that the concentrations used for the regular experiment were too high and would mess with the rebound results. So we decreased the concentrations by half and testing the results with the diluted reagents. In the end we had only a few days this week so we only were able to set the system up and I started the real testing the following week.

The following week I created more media needed for the experiment in a large batch all at once to maintain consistency. Afterwards I made the acid and base reagent concentrations needed for the experiment. In order to test the rebound times fully, I am using three different reagent concentrations to see if the concentration makes a difference in relationship. After I finished making all of the needed factors for the experiment I started gathering the data needed for the perturbation experiment. I worked on this for most of the week and collected the data for two concentrations. At the end of the week I presented the data I had collected so far to my lab. Afterwards I created more media needed for the last concentration and transferred the needed cultures. I even started the cultures needed for the overall experiment. Hopefully I can finish the perturbation experiment next week and successfully test the liquid manifold for 24 hours. I am excited to discover if there is any numerical relationship in the rebound times.