On the first day of my lab
(6-15-16), I had agreed to come and meet my Graduate student Adam at 10 o’clock
in the lobby of the New York University Center for genomics and systems biology
building. However due to some scheduling errors I ended up arriving at 8:45 a.m.
and ended up spending about an hour in a Starbucks down the block from the
building. The first and only previous time I had visited my lab was over spring
break, during which the security guard in the lobby of the building forced me
to wait outside the building entirely for someone to pick me up. On this day,
though, I had better luck and was able to wait in the lobby when I arrived. As
10 came I saw another Peddie Student, Seijin, walk through the door and be
picked up by her graduate student (who also happened to work in the Ghedin
Lab). Seeing as Adam wasn’t here, the guy who picked up Seijin invited me to
come upstairs too. He instructed me to sit in Adam’s chair at his desk as a
nice surprise for when he showed up. Not long afterwards Adam did show up and
he gave me a tour of the brand new lab (they had moved across the street in
April). I quickly learned that our lab is pretty big, spans two buildings, and people
are constantly being shuffled around so I don’t truly know that many people. On
the first day I was able to meet my PI, Dr. Ghedin, and she just like everyone
else was extremely friendly. The latter part of the day was spent one on one
with Adam; he sat me down and tutored me about different types of sequencing
and how it all relates to the pathology and virology title that the Ghedin Lab
holds.
(The World Trade Center Path Station via my commute)
So for the first week Adam wanted to get me prepared for
a mini-project that I would do. In true New York fashion, the Ghedin lab was
tired of having to wait more than an hour for their gels to run and be read
during gel electrophoresis. Given that I knew how gel electrophoresis worked,
Adam thought it would be the perfect project to help me integrate into the lab.
This project consisted of testing different buffer types because the standard
TAE buffer was considered too slow. So we decided to test out 2 different types
of buffer, Lithium Borate (LB) and and Sodium Borate (SB). Our hope is that one
of these two boratic solutions will be able to conduct gel electrophoresis more
efficiently while yielding more accurate results. I, personally, was tasked
with visiting the chemical cabinet and making the solutions. I also got to prepare
the samples used for testing, we agreed upon using 3 DNA ladders at varying
concentrations, genomic DNA that has high integrity/molecular weight, and the
PCR amplicons of E. Coli. Later today
(6-22-16) we plan on finally loading the gels, running the test, and getting
the results. I will keep the blog posted on what happens. Overall it’s been a
very busy first week but I’d say being in New York and being actively involved
in what is essentially my very own project makes the entire experience all the
more rewarding.
(Writing up the experimental design for the buffer experiment)
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