October 15, 2020
By: Juan Ayala and Quinlan Lammers
Coming back to lab again after so long we had to remember and regain our techniques we had done previously, since most of the last semester was spent learning from home due to the pandemic. It was a little tricky for us at first to remember most of what we had done. We have been practicing our old routines like PCR and Agarose Gel Electrophoresis for our TPH2 gene using our designed primers.
During these past couple weeks, we have been learning new techniques in lab. One of the newer techniques we have done in lab are RNA Isolations. This technique requires a much more intense practice and patience, but we’ve been learning how to use new equipment in lab like a homogenizer which is used to liquidate a sample, and even a refrigerated centrifuge which is a little different to the one we used in our regular PCR’s. At first, we were practicing RNA isolations on liver samples to filter and produce samples of RNA which we then tested using a Nanodrop which checks the RNA’s concentration and purity of the sample to see if it can be used for following procedures or not. After practicing on the liver samples, we then used brain tissue samples which are much smaller in weight.
While working on different techniques in lab, we still work on our primers for our gene. It hasn’t been working so far in regard to our gel images, but we are still trying to find out if the concentration and the quality of our primers. This week we had also done a qPCR practice using colored dyes and a template to practice on that skill. If we aren’t practicing on something new, then we are running PCR’s for our primer set 1. It has been good to be back in lab working and being able to continue our research but hopefully we get back to finding out the problem with our primers and working on advancing our lab skills at the same time.
