S-STEM Scholar Anh Nguyen's Blog

 Week 3: Making 1% Gel for PCR     In lab this week, I learned and experimented with 1% gel and how to make it. It requires some memorization on measuring and materials. It is not difficult but it just has a lot of steps. Materials Needed: - TAE Buffer (Key Ingredient) - 30 ml Electrophoresis Machine - 300 ml OR 0.3 grams of Agarose Process: Measuring Agarose- 30 mL x 1% (0.01)= 300 ml OR 0.3 grams 1. Put 300 ml/30g of agarose into a microwavable beaker of 30ml TAE buffer and swirl to mix.  2. Make a stopper with rolls of paper towels and inserting in the beaker's mouth (making sure it is all SOAKED and it fits TIGHTLY in the beaker's mouth) 3. Put the beaker in a microwave for 30 seconds. If liquid is not clear, add 30 seconds more)  4. Wait for mixture to cool since it is extremely hot and almost at boiling temperature.          ---> This prevents the Electrophoresis Machine's plastic to be warped when pouring the gel substance...

Week 2: Combining Tet and Fragments        In the lab this week, we worked with the combination of Tetr/a and Deinococcus fragments.  Procedure:      To start, it is important to understand how the experiment was started and the concept of it. I included sketches of what it would look like.  As shown here, we have our primers:  FRAGMENT 1     -  P1     - P2 TET     - P3     - P4 FRAGMENT 2     - P5        - P6 Each are made from Deinococcus while Tet, as shown, was taken and sampled from E. Coli. The goal here is to put Fragment 1 (P1-P2) and Fragment 2 (P5-P6) into parts of Tet. This explains the "split" line between Tet. However, it shouldn't be confused that Tet is being split in half; just Tet is being given to each fragments. To emphasize on that idea, here is a more specific example of how the fragments are all each going to be combined into Tet This is a mo...