Friday, October 17, 2008

my lab job


I work in a molecular lab, and this is what i do:


My boss, Dean Glawe-a plant pathologist and mycologist-picks out what powdery mildew samples he wants me to sequence. I am his lab technician.


Remove powdery mildew from plant leaves with a scalpel.


Break open the cells with a lysing matrix of garnet sand and ceramic balls.
Use Qiagen kit for DNA extraction.


PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) on extracted DNA with primers that amplify only (hopefully) the segment you are looking for.
Gel electrophoresis of PCR product to visually confirm correct amplification before investing more time in following procedures.





Exosap-IT procedure to clean the sample of non-target DNA.


Prepare samples of amplified DNA to be sent to Sequencing facility.


Three days later, we know the sequence of base pairs (A,T,C or G) and can compare our segment with others whether online or previously extracted in our lab.

Amazing!!! Science is amazing!!!

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2 comments:

amy said...

correction: YOU are amazing. let's give credit where credit is due, shall we?

congrats again, tess :)

Hiedi said...

wow. i've wondered what it is you are up to in Seattle... I knew you worked with mushrooms, but that's about it. What a smarty pants (I mean that nicely, I really like smarty pants). :)