S-STEM Scholar Madi Cook's Blog

 We made Urease solution for several plates, 2 plates were inoculated with Staph and Subtillus. This was also a facet through which we could observe mechanotaxis and chemotaxis motility phenomena. On Tuesday we inoculated two plates of R2A with Sonorensis in order to redo plasmid extraction. On Wednesday, we performed the plasmid extraction finally, using eight plates and increase the radiation by 25,000 mj/cm squared per plate. One plate was our control, which was not exposed to any radiation. We also needed to fix our dilution factor for non-iradiated bacteria, it was too high compared to what we established for our experiment. On Friday we listened to a presentation about epigenetics and methylation. Methylation occurs near regions with hemimethylation. We also observed hypomethylation. The process for epigenetics includes starting with initial growth of bacteria, then performed DNA isolation. From there, we do DNA fragmentation, and continue forth with Bisulfide conversion. Wit...

 Upon returning to lab, we observed that our previous media containing R2B had reached a timeout due to not being autoclaved properly. In the future, more emphasis will be accrued to ensuring media and respecting specimens are to be autoclaved. Therefore, we had to once again remake R2B media and TGY media. We curated three flasks of R2B with Deinococcus Sonorensis in order to perform plasmid extraction, if there was a plasmid to extract in the first place. We did this via the zippy kit. We also poured urease plates, and inoculated four flasks of R2B with Xinjiangensis to continue forward with our UV testing. Sonorensis was observed to have formed white plaque within R2B, possibly due to the TGY component therein. We then took 1ml each in eight epindorph tubes. Centrifuged that for 1 minute at 13,000 rpm. Thereafter discarding the super natent, ensuring OD values of 1, and repeating the process of centrifuging if needed to enlarge the bacterial pellet. We made it a point to inocula...

We remade R2A and TGY broth to conduct another set of UV resistance tests on Xinjiangensis. This time, the revised protocol for such has been tweaked to contain a spectrum of UV radiation levels rather than merely a jump from 50 mj/cm squared and 100 mj/cm squared to include differing intensities of UV exposure as a spectrum such as 25 mj/cm squared, 50 mj/cm squared, 100 mj/cm squared, and values in between of such UV exposure. Another process we fixed was from the specific inoculations of each bacteria colony to only consist of one, as to eliminate a technical error to one biological rep. The recoverability of R2A and TGY respectively includes 6 flasks, one for each UV test labeled A, B, C. 25ml of TGY per tube. Each tube of broth was alloclotted to reduce contamination, diluted, inoculated onto 11 plates, and then exposed to UV values. The purpose for doing so is to replicate this process for more verifiable and conclusive results as opposed to our prior tests. We want to understand...