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Final Week - Week 10

This week was not as busy as previous weeks. I did not have to run time-points like the previous weeks, and did not grow Pseudomonas putida. Most of what I did was to wrap-up.  I finished the measurements from last week’s experiment, finished analyzing last week’s data, ran an experiment for catalase activity with different concentration of catalase, edited my PowerPoint for the final presentation, and finished up my final paper for this internship.

On Monday, the particulates on the filters from last week’s experiment were used to run leucoberbelin blue (LBB) assay and formaldoxime assay. The LBB assay was done to measure manganese oxide (MnOx), and the formaldoxime assay was done for total manganese measurement.  The data from LBB assays showed that my culture with 1.8 uM of iron (III) chloride (FeCl3) reached peak production of MnOx faster than 9 uM FeCl3 . Then later in the afternoon, Wendy Smythe helped me edit my PowerPoint for the final presentation.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I ran a catalase activity experiment with 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 U/mL. I was trying to find the rate of decomposition of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), but my data points came out noisy. When I plotted the result, the points looked all messy. Then I edited all my data and added error bars on each of my graphs. Also I did some final touchup for my PowerPoint, and then used the whole day to practice for my presentation.

Thursday was the final presentation day. I did more practice in the morning and presented in the afternoon. It went longer than expected, but overall it went well. Everyone was prepared for this.

On Friday, I repeated the catalase activity experiment. This time I got better results. Only the concentration at 0.4 and 0.8 U/mL showed an obvious decreasing trend of fluorescence over time. The other concentrations were really noisy.

I cannot believe it’s the last week of my internship already. Being part of CMOP internship program opened my eyes to the research field, and I had so much fun working with everyone in Tebo and Haygood’s lab. Working in a lab is not easy. The results do not always come up as expected, so the experiments have to be tweaked according to the results. Overall I had a great experience thanks to everyone in CMOP, especially Vanessa who game me this opportunity and my frontline mentor Matthew Jones who guided me throughout this internship.