Alex's iGEM Experience 2009

Its been a long time

2009-09-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

It's my last week, happy to go to college but sad about leaving all the wonderful people at UCSF mission bay. This summer has passed by very fast, all those long hours in the lab kept me busy. The last couple of weeks have been mostly analysis of the microscope movies we have taken and we have some cool results to present at the Jamboree.

insane in the membrane, actually cyan

2009-08-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

pretty colors

2009-08-06T16:30:00.000-07:00

Wednesday

2009-08-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today...

I am actually writing in my blog! It's been a while because I'm so tired after a day of lab. Things are moving right along but we are all working overtime to finish as much as we can. Today I took fluorescent photos of the dicty cells that have CFP on the periphery, they're beautiful. pics to come...

Microscopee

2009-07-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

Today...

I am preparing my dicty strains so that they are ready to be filmed in 12 well plates.

6:13pm: i'm on my third movie

WERKIN'

2009-07-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

In the lab, it feels like I have a million things to to do before Friday. I really want to make a lot of progress because our time here is already at the halfway point. I have to get back to the Weiner Lab because my freezing media is almost thawed.

In The Lab

2009-07-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

Its Thursday again, I haven't been keeping up with my blowg! I've been really busy, but its a lame excuse. Anyway, right now I am waiting for my test digests and I am also analyzing DNA sequences. Today at lunch we will be preparing for a small presentation to a group that is visiting tomorrow.

This week has been fast...

2009-07-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

What?, it's the end of Thursday already? Where is the surprise? Never mind, this is serious business guys, we're saving lives!, well sort of, in science all knowledge builds on previous knowledge, and maybe we're paving the way for life-saving therapies? Maybe you think I speculate too much, I don't, it's just my motivation. BOO YAH

This week has been filled with tons of lab work for all of us, and the "dicty babies", as Oliver calls us, are now moving in our own direction [no pun intended], in other words we are becoming more independent with our own tasks in the laboratory. I know where to find most things in the lab now without asking like a neophyte.

Oh yeah, and I left the lab at a decent hour today, around 6:45 pm! I need my rest and kitchen table people, so calm down. WYP!? you've heard it all before, WAHHH!!!

you can find me in the ... CAVE

2009-07-08T20:02:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here in the cave bloggin'. Its 8:00 pm and I'm waiting for my cells to recover. Ryan L. is griping about the FACS machine, what's new? LAWL. But we're all having fun, don't get the wrong idea. Eric is watching Chinese soap operas in between experiments and it shows that Mr.C wasn't wrong when he said he was a sensitive flower!

7/6/09

2009-07-06T17:13:00.000-07:00

Photos from last week:

Lab Ratz...

2009-06-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

Weeewoooo!

I'm here now and here is some updatez...

Monday:

Yesterday...

It was the first full day of REAL lab work at a world class university, So you ask how did it go? It was wonderful, tons of procedures kept us busy. We stayed til 8 pm.. so exhausted but it doesn't phase me because hard work is rewarding! JAMBOREE HERE WE COME, what?! oh yeah still the first day, anyway we had highs and lows, dramatic huh? Well look at Edna here:

We made an ooopsie and we had to dig through smelly bacteria infested garbage to recover our transformed E. coli!

Tuesday:

Today...

Really?, Ryan L. your going to gripe about your experience with the extremely slow FACS machine, WAAAAH! all the babies are crying for you! Just kidding.

LERB WERK is fun and strangely addictive: my FAYVE was mixing tracking dye into 30 samples of digested DNA for the agarose gel, such a simple task but fun, the repetitive action of sucking up dye then mixing into each PCR tube is hypnotizing and utterly satisfying. I also like using the pipette gun to transfer media, absolutely awesome, I try to be as faster each time while maintaining my precision(I know its not my first time doing these procedures but now I'm doing these things in great numbers and I find myself playing games to get things done accurately) My technique is getting better, which gets me thinking, we should have contests where the goal is to fill as many tubes as you can with media within a set time period! GEEK-TASTIC. Later in the day I set up, with the help of Ryan Q, 51 mini preps, a lot for only me to carry out originally, well WAAAAH myself then, stop your complainin' Alex. Don't get carried away readers, I'll be back tomorrow with another post.

Friday Update...

2009-06-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

Wow, I made it through boot camp. On friday I found out that I'll be working on dictyostelium this summer with Oliver, Delquin, Pincus, Edna, Ethan, Ryan Q and Allen. AWESOME, all of the cloning paid off! I get to use the plasmids that we already made. Now it's full time lab work and I'm switching gears. More updates to come LOL last week I didn't put too many posts because I was sick.

Team Challenge Day Part 2

2009-06-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for presentations...

Its 9:06 we're about to do a practice run of presentation.

10:00am: Black team goes first, that's us, it went well. There was a lot of questions from observers as expected. Wendell added to our tethered cell idea by saying that it would be cool to see if multiple cells could carry a payload instead of one (which has already been tested).

11:00am: Green team's turn. I'm impressed on how many diagrams they have, Cathy can draw really fast. Another LAWL moment: Pincus just made up an analog: CRAPAMYCIN! (as an example). Cathy: "who doesn't like weapons!?"

12:00pm: Blue team is last, they took advantage of all of the parts.

Team Challenge Day Part 1

2009-06-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

BEYAAHHHH! I'm reporting in the cave right now and we're about to start team challenge... updates to come!

10am-12pm: Best idea awards were won by Jackie and Allen, CONGRATS! Then, teams were announced, I'm on the Black team with Ethan, Jackie, Saber, Jacinto, Oliver, and Delquin. We brainstormed for ideas on how to engineer braking, accelerating, and steering systems in a motile cell using our catalog of parts.

1pm: Pizza lunch with soda, LAWL can't believe Iowa ate the pizza that fell face first on the desk chair.

2pm-5pm: My team developed our ideas in the atrium and we each chose around 2 to present for tomorrow. I have to present one idea for accelerating and one idea for steering...

:(

2009-06-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

Today...

I am sick with acute rhinopharyngitis aka the cold and I was too dizzy to go to UCSF... Checking out.

Tidbits..

2009-06-21T19:19:00.001-07:00

Oh yeah, where's my cool UCSF id? I hope I get it soon!

Friday Update

2009-06-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

Yupp yupp its Sunday and I'm chillaxin', Psych!, I'm reading the assigned Nature article, but I decided to update this blog about Friday's lemons, I mean lessons, sorray.

Two days ago...

I woke up and it was the last last day of the first week of the rest of iGEM, CONFUSED?

Anyway, I survived the first week of Bill Nye's version of boot camp and it was CRAC-taculous. We started off the day with the journal club which covered the CRAC-GFP paper and I was disappointed to find out that the funny sounding CRAC was not of much importance, it was the PH domain, which is responsible for intracellular signaling pathways. Nizzext was a short break and then it was Iowa's turn at the board. This is what he showed us on the projector:

BORDERLINE AMAZING if you ask me! All of us in the conference room LAWL-ED for a bit and then he went on to explain this embarrassing military photo. His analogy was that soldiers could not defend themselves in regular jeeps and they also could not easily transport machine guns, and so was invented the machine gun mounted jeep. Ergo, in synthetic biology scientists can combine different modules into a single protein in order to build a "device" with multiple functions, its like killing two birds with one stone.

Iowa (Andrew) went on to teach us about small G-proteins, in order to not be confused by the similarly intriguing gangsta proteins, they can be also called GTPases... ignore my insanity.. As I was about to say, GTPases are activated by GEFs and switched off by GAPs. I could go on and on explaining all of the stunning topics I learned but I must read "An inducible translocation strategy to rapidly activate and inhibit small GTPase signaling pathways" in the Nature Journal. Post Scriptum: don't ask, lets just say it was another analogy

CRAC Is Whack

2009-06-18T21:32:00.000-07:00

Marshmallow

2009-06-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

Today...

I got a dose of caffeine from the cafe to ensure that I would be attentive for the morning lectures and so that I wouldn't become a human bobble head. We arrived at the conference room at 9am and we reviewed the problem set on actin with Arthur and then we had what is called a Journal Club meeting where we read and analyzed a paper from Nature called Actin microfilament dynamics in locomoting cells. During the Journal Club, Arthur set up the marshmallow and toothpick model of actin microfilaments, this demonstration actually made the concepts of the paper clearer to me and it also made me never to want to eat marshmallows again because by the time Arthur was done with them, they were tore up and covered with black ink. What did the marshmallows do to deserve being stabbed repeatedly by an ecstatic graduate student? Next came the cell signals lecture and the G-Protein coupled receptor lecture. After 4 hours of lessons we were happy to take a lunch break. Afterwards, we completed our minipreps and we also observed our newly cultured dictyostelium. We also had time to celebrate June birthdays by taking a break to eat ice cream cake with the lab. This day was fairly stress-free and we finally returned to the Cave (pictured) to get our belongings so that we could go home, we caught the shuttle at around 6pm.

Stop actin' up!

2009-06-16T22:05:00.000-07:00

Today...

We went over the GFP paper and then we interacted in a lesson about actin and how it relates to cell motility. At one o' clock it was lunch and after eating with my teammates I completed the lengthy online safety training so that I could legally work on the bench. After a few minutes of relaxation in the cozy iGEM rat cave (pictures soon to follow!!!), Raquel lead us to the front lawn of Genentech Hall to take our pictures for the wiki profiles. Next, half of us went with Oliver to culture dictyostelium in liquid media and then the other half followed. Next on our to-do list was redoing minipreps of our plasmids from a recent ligation. We all left a bit exhausted around 7pm but it was all worth it, iGEM Boot Camp has turned out to be a blast and I am exited for what is to come.

My First Day at Mission Bay

2009-06-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today...

I arrived at the UCSF Mission Bay campus for the first time and I was immediately astonished at the size of Genentech Hall and its architectural beauty. I was also pleased to find out that there are plenty of places to buy food and coffee. Today was also great because I met the other members of the iGEM team and the graduate students who will be teaching us. So far so good, and I am looking forward to labwork but I am still in the process of safety training.