Week 1 (May 2 - 8)

Monday

First day of offical work in the lab! I'm extremely excited for the next 4 months! Last night I inoculated numerous tubes containing 5 mL of LB media with cells from our glycerol stock in HJ's -80^oC. The plasmid DNA was extracted from these cells using the QIAGEN spin column method. The purified plasmid DNA was analyzed and quantified using agarose gel electrophoresis. These DNA will be used for assemblies in the coming days.
I inoculated 4 2L flasks containing LB media with cells hosting biobrick plasmids. Tomorrow I plan to use a QIAGEN maxiprep protocol to obtain large amounts of these plasmids.
I finished the day organizing and cleaning the lab in preparation for this years volunteers to arrive. I've got two weeks to get the lab running, then they're here!

Tuesday

Our lab has received Maxiprep spin columns from BIOBASIC. Today I attempted to Maxiprep pSB1A3, pSB1C3, pSB1T3, and pSB1K3 for use this summer. After completing the protocol the samples were analyzed on an agarose gel, revealing little to no DNA. The columns won't be used again.

Wednesday

Harland inoculated 5 mL cultures containing E. coli hosting various biobricks last night. Today I minipreped the cells, digested the samples and ran them on an agarose gel to confirm the correct parts.

I spent the remainder of the day working on fundraising applications.

Wednesday

• Each of I1343, B0034, C0040 & B0015 were restricted following the Restriction Protocol 4.
• A gel was made following the 1% Agarose Gel Protocol (100mL).
• The restrictions were loaded onto the gel with a 1kb ladder and 100bp ladder.
• The gel ran at 120V for 60 minutes.
• The gel was then stained in Ethidium Bromide for 10 minutes.
• Results: The parts were confirmed with the correct sizes.