Peddie EXP 2017

My time at Hahnemann Hospital at Drexel University just came to an end this past Friday, but not without making some great memories in my final two weeks working in the Bouchard Laboratory.  Both inside the lab and out, I tried to make the most out of my limited time left in Philadelphia this summer. The view of Hahnemann Hospital at Drexel Medicine from 15th Street. My sixth week started off working on the new mutant sample (HBx 50-131) that we had begun work on the previous week.   Kennadi and I performed a QiaPrep MiniPrep Spin Kit on the bacteria cells with our mutant DNA.  Unfortunately when we used the Nanodrop One to determine our concentration and cleanliness of our plasmids we found that something either went wrong with the transformation or the MiniPrep.  Afterwards, we continued to track the growth of our HepG2 cells on the collagen plates until it was time for the weekly lab meeting.  Ron gave the presentation at the lab meeting about...

My fifth week at the Bouchard Laboratory in Center City Philly was filled with both the end of one project and the beginning of a new one.  I also had time to explore new parts of the city on Friday. Monday started off the same as every other week with the grad students working on a rat students and a new member of the lab being introduced to all of us.  Later that morning Joe taught Kennadi and I how to send the completed plasmids for our 7 mutant HBx proteins off for sequencing.  It consisted mostly of diluting our plasmids with ddH2O and labeling of small tubes.  After a mini lunch break Kennadi and I changed the growth media for our HepG2 cell plates (her's were contaminated so I gave her one of my 2 plates), because the cells were clumped together on them.  To end the day we each made 500 mL of 1x PBS, which is used in cell work, from a stock solution using the autoclave machine.  This PBS would be used by us later in the week. 1x PBS I made on m...

This is my first blog post in two weeks as both weeks have been shortened by the fourth of July and my grad student Joe’s mini vacation to New York City.  That said despite spending less time in the lab than previous weeks, I still managed to accomplish a great deal of work. I only worked 3 out of 5 business days during the week of the fourth of July.  After celebrating our nation’s independence over the four day weekend, I went back to work on Wednesday, picking back up where we (Kennadi and I) left off.  Using a QIAprep Spin Miniprep Kit, we isolated the DNA from the bacteria cultures that we grew in LB broth the previous week.  Additionally, this day marked the end of Khin’s (a graduate student) time in the Bouchard Laboratory.  We celebrated her many hardworking years in the lab as we welcomed a new transfer student who will be spending the next 10 weeks in the lab.  It seems like every week someone is either leaving or joining the lab giving me the ...

My second week in Philadelphia was much more compacted in terms of both work as well as other “obligations” while in the city.  That said, although I had less free time I feel that I benefited more from learning more about the research and the city itself than I did in my first week. On Monday, we continued our mutagenesis project as we began the day by conducting gel electrophoresis.  Kennadi and I worked together to make an agarose gel to run the mutant HBx samples on.  The entire gel electrophoresis process itself was familiar to me, thanks to ample practice doing so in biotechnology.  After the gel was finished, we stained the gel with Ethidium Bromide (EtBr) in order to be able to view the DNA bands under UV light.  After determining that all of my three samples and 1 of Kennadi’s were the only successful ones after viewing the gel, we conducted PCR on all the failed samples (Joe’s 2 samples and 2 of Kennadi’s).  The goal of this was to raise the Tm...

My first week at Drexel was both challenging and relaxing at different points.  Travelling to an unfamiliar part in Philadelphia, one of the biggest cities in America is not an easy feat.  It took me a couple of rides on the PATCO and wandering around 15th street to finally figure out how to have a smooth commute. My first day, Monday June 19, was my longest and most tedious, being jet-lagged and recovering from a slight caffeine addiction thanks to the China trip didn’t help either.  Within ten minutes of my being in the lab, I was already watching my first rat surgery which was conducted by a graduate student (Nick).  The goal of the surgery was to isolate the hepatocyte cells from the rest of the liver.  Afterwards I began a series of introductions to different laboratory members and filled out a series of paperwork.  My PI, Dr. Bouchard then gave me and another high school student Kennadi, who started work on the same day, a personal tour of his lab ...