I actually did it. I defended my thesis last week. Believe it or not. I certainly do not. At least not yet. A summary of the thesis can be seen in the above picture (courtesy of Wordle). Now what?
The confocal microscopy wasnt’ the blast I was hoping for. Not because 3D visualization using laser and fluourescence isn’t fun and impressive. But, mostly me having high hopes: Looking at living mammal cells. Manipulated proteins with different stains, interacting, colourful images… Oh well. Instead, we watched a dull image of some cells involved in the [...]
I’m attending a 3 week long course teaching different microscopy techniques. We are 8 people. Yesterday, I fell hopelessly in love. With their brand new scanning electron microscopy! I was kind of suspecting this to happen, having wanted to work on a SEM for along time, but I was really blown away. I definetly need [...]
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
I’ve not been able to do much work in the lab lately. Mostly because I’m a Master of Procrastination(TM). But also because I’ve been working on finishing the practical part of a course I’m taking this semester, chromatography. We’re having three lab exercises, using three separation techniques. Ion exchange column, GC (with FID) and HPLC. [...]
Initiating a new transformation process this Friday, I spent most of the weekend in the lab. Mostly … waiting. This evening, at 19:30, looking at the result (after restriction enzyme cutting): The transformation was successfull! Nothing to write home about, really… But. After a week of feeling crappy. Lacking results. Nothing going the way you [...]
Monday, February 27, 2006
That is, lack of successfull transformation. I got my colonies on the LB agar, and was happy, everything going on as planned. But, darn, something wasn’t right. Using restriction enzymes to cut the new plasmids, checking if my genes actually had been incorporated, showed … nothing. I’ve spent the last days trying to find out [...]
Monday, February 13, 2006
I’ve learned a lot these first weeks. And the feeling of being totally lost is gradually fading. Still, talking about green fingers, my head definitely feels green sometimes… Anway. I got the primers. I did PCR. I did gel electrophoresis, isolating the genes I multiplied. Today I started the transformation progress, using the Zero Blunt [...]
So. I’m installed in the lab. I’ve done my initial share of mixing up buffers and LB media for the E.coli bacteria (the ever-present lab workhorse). I’ve created a (tiny) stock of vectors (pRSET based), and should work out the primers for PCR amplifying the two chitin binding proteins I will work on. Trying not [...]
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
I had a meeting with my supervisor today. He gave me a “tour de labs”, and got me installed. Immediate plans involves setting up an array of useful buffers. I will also have to design primers for a couple of potentially interesting genes that codes for proteins involved in chitin degradation. When the constructs (vector [...]
Saturday, December 24, 2005
My thesis is scheduled to begin in August, but I’m already planning on starting slowly this winter. This autumn I’ve been studying mathematical statistics, molecular biology, protein chemistry, and molecular genome analysis. I’m slightly ahead of my original plan, meaning I will only apply to one course this spring (chromatography), and one intensive course next [...]