Hi guys!

This week, I've been prepping for my project, which is the study of transfer rates of plasmids between bacteria in batch bioreactors. A bioreactor (that one is quite complicated-->) is a vessel where environmental conditions like the amounts of different gases, flowrates, temperature, and pH can all be controlled; but for our experiment, we are going to use bottles with vaccum seals instead. Next week, in the bioreactors, we are going to test six different concentrations of bacteria. We have already made triplicates of each combination of bacteria so that if one sample is faulty, then we still have two other ones to study, and we'll study how they're similar to or different from each other, of course. Right now, I have 34 bottles of solutions waiting to be inoculated with the bacteria on monday. I'll come in on sunday to watch my mentor prepare the bacteria so that I can learn how for later; something I've learned this week is that scientific research has no time constraints! Anyway, today, I also have to make a calibration curve comparing different amounts of toluene. The graph will become our standard, and the measurements we obtain from the bioreactors will be compared to the calibration curve. The optimal slope should be .999; hopefully we'll get that number today. My mentor Ruoting told me that I'll be very busy next week with the 34 bioreactors, so I'll be having an extremely productive few days in the lab! I'm really excited to see how the data turns out because we'll be testing to see whether an E-Coli conjugate with P. Putida's plasmid exists.

Have a lovely weekend,
Annie