I’ve spent 6 weeks in Dr. Friend’s lab so far, and it is not exactly what I expected! Lab work in classes like Organic Chemistry and Biology differs drastically from the lab work in Dr. Friend’s lab. We spend a lot of time analyzing data, and we have been struggling to efficiently transfect our mouse cells with our processivity construct DNA. The struggles and challenges are what make this lab so different from my previous lab experiences in class – but it’s what I’m enjoying about lab so much this summer! It’s frustrating when things don’t go according to plan at first, but problem solving with Dr. Friend and the other members of my lab has made the experience more engaging than any lab for class.
One of our main goals was to test candidate proteins to see which ones affect the expression of the MTOR gene, but we haven’t even had the chance to begin testing these proteins yet! With the new introduction of yeast as a model organism into Dr. Friend’s lab, we have had to learn many more protocols!
As of now, we know that when yeast reach high optical densities, the levels of mRNA do not change. In essence, regardless of cell density, all of our yeast samples had consistent mRNA values. We are continuing to test our other hypotheses, however, and I can’t wait to see what we figure out.
I’ll check back in after my last two weeks of lab are over!