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WEEK 5

Overall this week has been very successful! I have prepared the two samples from the peak of the red tide Myrionecta rubra bloom from 2007 and 2008 for cloning. They were sent to the primate center this morning to be sequenced! I am very anxious to see the results next week!

I have also been working with the new cryptophyte primers. The first time I ran the primers at a 1X and 10X dilution (using the same red tide samples from 2007 and 2008) it worked! The 1X samples showed a strong signal. However, when I re-ran the samples the next day to prepare them for cloning they showed no signal :(. This could be due to the problems we have been having with our PCR machine. Unfortunately one of the blocks does not work and needs to be sent away for repair. This morning I re-ran them again and they are now running on a different PCR machine so I am anxious to see if they show a signal when a different machine is used.

I have enjoyed learning more about cloning and other preparations of the sequencing process. Next week I will finish cloning the rest of the ETM samples from the May 2009 cruise so they can all be sent to Washington University in St. Louis in order to be fully sequenced.