Skip to main content

Getting Started

 Before any lab work related to the project could begin, I had to undergo pipette training in addition to an "initiation rite" of making a buffer. The lab is truly friendly and the members seem to collectively have a genuine interest in my progression as a researcher. 

My junior mentor, Yasin Topcu, has occupied the vast majority of the greenhouse for his blossom-end rot (BER) experiments. I will be aiding his projects this summer as well as progressing my own contribution to BER-related knowledge as described in the "Explaining the Project" post. The seedling tray in the bottom left of the picture below is the F2 population of the BGV7900 and BGV793 cross that should show the segregating leaf color.

Later in the week, I made my own PCR buffers and tested them in the "PCR initiation rite". I used PCR to genotype 2 sets of 4 samples at the fas locus. We ran a gel of the PCR products and confirmed that my buffer works. In addition, Yasin taught me how to read a gel so I could confirm that the + & - controls worked as planned; the two remaining samples were heterozygous and wild-type. So far, I am attaining the exact experience I had hoped for from this opportunity. I even got to assist one graduate student with tissue propagation this week!





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Organic Farm Trip

This week in the REEU we visited the Sundance Organic Farm in Danielsville, Georgia. There we met farmer Ed who grows everything on his farm organically. This means that he must abide by certain regulations and avoid the use of certain pesticides and GMO crops in order to meet the organic requirements. Instead of pesticides, he relies on planting small portions of crops and rotating them often to avoid getting a severe infestation. He said he once got an insect problem and had to go squish them by hand and spray with neem oil (an organic bug deterrent) to fight them off. He also avoids the use of herbicides and picks weeds by hand. He says farming is better this way, rather than spraying "poision" on your crops and then feeding it to your family. He did admit though, he would potentially be open to planting editted tomatoes if they still contain only the tomato genome. However, this would breach the organic regulations and would therefore be impossible for him. Nonetheless, h
Post a Comment
Read more

Florida and DNA extraction

This week, my lab took a trip to Florida to harvest some tomatoes we had in Floridian fields. I learned some tomato terms like "breaker" (a tomato in between green/red) and "inflorescence" (a flowering group) while getting my field experience. The project works with the University of Florida which was kind enough to let us use some lab space while we were there. We chopped up tomatoes to observe their volatiles in GCMS for a Ph.D. student in our lab. I enjoyed the experience because it gave me another opportunity to explore a lab space dedicated to plant science and I was able to see interesting Floridian wildlife.  We arrived at the fields in the early morning; these are the fields we harvested. Above is a bug that was blended into a plant in Florida that we saw on our trip. After returning to Georgia, we set to work to extract DNA from the F6 generation from the greenhouse in addition to the parental lines. By extracting one cotyledon from each plant, we had enoug
Post a Comment
Read more

Poster Symposium

On Thursday, I presented my research from the REEU to the public as well as my peers and their mentors. I enjoyed the experience as it was interesting to see people engaging in my project. I surprised myself with how many questions I could answer and was proud of the work I did over the summer. I intend to pursue research and genetics in graduate school, so I am grateful for this experience. When I entered this program, I knew I liked plants but was unaware of the rewarding work involving genetics. I hope to use genetics in the future to continue understanding and improving plants.
Post a Comment
Read more