I'm back and better than ever!

Yeah, that's right, I am back! After battling three days and nights to combat headaches, clogged nasal passages, and an annoying cough, I walked into the lab today with new energy and a slight runny nose. And, boy howdy, I definitely needed it. I can guarantee you that I'm here until 7:00 pm at least, but it is all for good reason.

Today was fantastic, to say the least. The more time I spend in the lab, the happier I get. There was an interesting development over the weekend, something that even Anne had never seen. Firstly, let me clarify something. I made a mistake in my last post. We DID NOT insert the strawberry genome into the GFP plasmid, but into another 'carrier' plasmid called pGEM. The reason we did this is because it is easier to keep that way than just keeping the small strawberry genome. We had done the PCR on this small genome, so in order not to do all that work over again, we put it into a plasmid. Not only that, but it makes digestion easier. If we were just to let the enzymes loose on the genome, it would have a hard time finding where to cut, whereas, when it is in a plasmid, it has more of a 'context'.

So, what did Anne see? Remember when we inserted the carrier plasmid into bacteria and we said that we would know that the bacteria who had taken the genome and plasmid were white and the bacteria who had taken just the plasmid were blue? Well, I turn up today and not only did we have blue and white colonies, but we had pink and purple colonies! Rad, right? We don't really have an idea why it happened, but Anne thought that maybe the IPGT may have spread across the gel and caused these spontaneous color changes. Anyway, that was quite exciting! Charles, one of my friendly co-workers, had already put the white, violet, and pink bacteria to grow in liquid cultures. We purified the Dna and are now going to separate the plasmids from the actual Dna of the bacteria using good ole gel electrophoresis. We will cut the desired bit of Dna out of the gel (oh yeah!), then try and insert it into the GFP plasmid (which is also called PKK, for future reference). Then we will have done it!

Apart from that, not much new. I have just started the storyboard, and am already frustrated with it. My mind moves way too fast to sit down and think slowly about placement of planels, angles, and story direction. But I gotta do what I gotta do. I can already see the long, long line of work ahead of me. Time to go into overdrive!

Until next time, folks!
Clover