Jacqueline Hayes's blog

The last two weeks of the program I mainly spent working on my poster and paper. There was not much I could do in the lab since my part in the experiment was already finished. However, my mentor Rachel tested me on my knowledge that I learned over the summer. To accomplish this she purposefully made it so the pHstat system would not work and I had to discover where the problem was located and fix the system.

During the seventh week of the program, I discovered that the pHstat system reagent flow rate might be dependent upon the height of the reagent bags above the manifold. In order to discover the range that the manifold maintained similar perturbation times, I experimented with the height of the reagents increasing it an inch at a time until the system could no longer compensate. I tested two different concentrations at the 0.25 pH deviation, this was due to this deviation resulting in the greatest difference in perturbation from the data.

This past week was the sixth week of the program and we have reached past the halfway point. During this week I collected most of the data for my side project. First, I needed to finish gathering all of the perturbation data from the concentration that I used in the previous week. This concentration with a ratio of 1:11 took two days to collect and assess all of the data. Each day after I finished my perturbation data collection, my mentor and I tested the liquid manifold for overnight data collection.

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.

For the third week we begin testing for the base data of the gas manifold system. I learned that using the chemostat can work in two different ways when regulating the pH of the system. One way is using a specified CO₂ gas mixture through a gas manifold. This specified gas mixture creates turbulence in the culture and would be harmful to the dinoflagellate culture. That is the main reason why a liquid manifold of acid and base mixtures will be used. However, the project has once again come across problems.

During the second week of the program we ran into a problem that postponed the testing for our experiment. The pH meter for the system was unable to measure the pH level and we needed to wait for a new shipment of extras so the computer could read and record our data. So instead of starting the project, I dedicated my time to reading more scientific literature and learning how to use the Lab view program.

Starting out here at the CMOP internship program, I had a lot to get adjusted to in the lab. For the first week here I learned where most items were located in the lab.