3 April 2020
By: Alex Calli-Wehrman and Matt Bromann
Along with Spring comes a new RISEBio blog post. In this entry, Alex and Matt will be bringing everyone up to speed on how their research has been going and how their school lives have been affected by COVID-19. So buckle up and get ready for another amazing entry.
Before the pandemic and spring break, Matt and I were in the middle of a PCR clean-up, which is isolating DNA to see if there is only one DNA sequence present. To do this, we made a gel and ran our amplified DNA so that we can get a band of DNA. With this band of DNA, we then cut it out from the gel and heated it so the gel would turn into a liquid. Once the gel was melted, we centrifuged (basically, the spin cycle of a washing machine) it from the DNA to isolate the DNA. We planned on finishing our PCR clean-up after spring break. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, we are unable to continue doing our research.
In Minnesota, COVID-19 has caused a lot of concern from both residents and Minnesota State Institutions. All MNSU classes were moved online, and Spring Break had been extended three weeks. With classes being online, research can’t exactly continue. When classes resumed on March 30th, there was a fairly difficult move from in-person class to online. Procrastination very negatively affects students who just spent three weeks relaxing. Some students have been staying up late and sleeping in late and the start of classes is more of an inconvenience than a shock to them. Not only have universities closed, but all businesses that were deemed non-essential. Governor Walz has called a Stay-At-Home order and recommended everyone to stay home unless they absolutely need to leave, i.e. for groceries or the doctor’s office. It’s the same in Wisconsin too. Schools all over the state have been closing as well as non-essential businesses.
It is sad to see our freshman year of college end due to this pandemic, but this is to make sure we help flatten the curve. Hopefully, we can move past this and then continue onto our second year without interruption in our studies. So please, if you are reading this, stay home and do your part to help our healthcare workers.
