Jelly on a plate, jelly on a plate, wimble wobble, wimble wobble, jelly on a plate

For those of you who thought this weeks post was going to be about eating jelly you are slightly wrong but for those who thought it is about making jelly you are slightly right. This week has involved co-sedimentations. And co-sedimentations require GELS, the scientific equivalent to jelly, at least according to me.

Co-sedimentation is done to see if the components used in the ATPase assays actually bind. If they don't, well then all that time spent pipetting was a bit of a waste. To do this you mix components used in our ATPase assays, in my case this was Actin, tropomyiosn and troponin. These are all components of the thin filament in muscle and they are responsible for regulation of muscle activity. However, to be able to regulate muscle activity they need to be bound to each other. Samples were prepared containing all three components or containing just one component. After a times incubation the samples were run on a gel. Well first the gel had to be made, so to my headline. See making a gel can be slightly compared to making jelly. When you make a gel you mix different solutions, one making it solidify, just like in jelly, hence my headline. But instead of eating our scientific jelly we put our samples on it and ran electricity through it, which in my view is a lot more fun. And what made it even better is that the results showed there was binding, so a big yay my thumb has not been sacrificed in vain

Until next week

and we wait

One thing that has been said about science is that when you need time you have non and when you don't you have a lot.
This is exactly what I have been experiencing in my third week here in the lab.

The beginning of the week was definitely a time lacking period. More ATPase assays were on the agenda and if you are slightly absent minded there just isn't enough time to keep those reactions in check. A few mistakes were made and some funny results indeed came out in the end. However, with some proper sleep concentration was returned and what seemed like ok results were obtained, until I ran out of protein that is.

The lack of proteins signified the other part of my week, the one with way to much time. See proteins are extraordinary things but they are also annoying things when they take for ever to be purified. So when you have read all journals imaginary there is nothing left to do than sit and stare at your timer. But all of this is part of being a scientist, well this is my hope.

Until next week, where I hope time will be more evened out

Queen of pipetting

Time really flies in my dear lab, yet another week has passed.

This week all that actin that was purified last week came to good use. The actin was used in several ATPase assays together with myosin, tropomyosin and troponin. Simply explained the ATPase assays are a way of checking the activity of a muscle. The aim is to repeat the assays but with combinations of mutated tropomyosin to see if there is a difference in activity. This difference hopefully explaining different muscle myophaties which is the whole aim with my project.

The assays run this week were mostly practice. In theory it is a simple experiment but in practice you need to be very detailed and good at PIPETTING. If there is one thing I have done this week it is just that, pipetting. I calculated that in one day I pipetted 140 times. Now that gives some thumb cramp. But this weekend my thumb has been on ice so I'm all ready to go tomorrow.

one week later

So I am one week into my summer research project and I wish I could say I am now a lab genius but sadly I'm not. However, I have definitely learnt a lot in a short time. In only one week I have seen the purification of actin from beginning to end. And when I mean beginning I mean beginning. It is easy to neglect where protein preps used for experiments come from when doing lab work. Let just put it like this all lab work is not glorious. Hence, I will always appreciate a good actin prep in the future.

The actin which has been purified is going to be used in my future experiments so it is important that it has gone well. Something that lab work doesn't always do. Hence for this week I am keeping my fingers crossed that, even though not a lab genius, my skills have been good enough for the actin to have survived. But if not, at least I now know how to start from the beginning. And we all know what they say practise makes perfect.

First day!

So today was the start of what will be my 7 weeks in a lab here at Leicester.

Can't say I did much apart from familiarise myself with the place so I don't get lost in the future. But that is always something. Now for some reading and fingers crossed there will actually be lab work tomorrow.