WELL, WE ARE HALFWAY THERE!
Hello everyone, my name is Frank Gonzalez and I am working in Dr. Betsy Read’s lab. I can’t believe we have already been here for five weeks. They are just flying by and we are all well into our projects and looking towards our poster presentation. For these first five weeks I have been looking at three different microalgae mutants along with the wild type. I have been spending a lot of time performing lipid extractions, running it through the GC/MS, and analyzing my data to characterize the mutants based off the lipid profiles, below I included a relative percentage chart of my samples. I have also learned how to inoculate cells, perform flow cytometry to count my cells and track the amount of neutral lipids, and this week I learned how to perform a DNA extract and run my first ever gel. I did have some RNA contamination and a little shearing but that is to be expected. Besides spending our time in lab this week, we got to hear a very interesting and informative seminar about epigenetics given by Dr. Elinne Becket, participate in the annual grunion run, go on my first Californian hike, and grill out for the 4th of July. Overall my time so far here has been great and I am sure will continue to be great but over my time of being here and talking with my fellow peers I have learned that working in a lab can be hard and at times frustrating but at the same time it is so rewarding when you see the bands light up on your first gel or a unique lipid profile on one of your mutants. It makes the frustrating moments worth it. I can’t wait to see what these next five weeks have in store. So long yall! PS- peep the lab coat.
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Watch this space for weekly updates!Every week, one of our CSUSM NSF REU students will post their blurb, summarizing their week, and chronicling our program. AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2023
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