Fun with bacteria
Mar. 6th, 2004 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gemfyreSo I've started Microbiology 2. It's the only unit I'm doing this semester and all it consists of is an hour lecture and 4 hours of allocated lab time every Friday - slack semester for me. :)
In the labs we have to choose our own experiment to carry out then do it ALL ourselves (of course you can ask one of the tutors but you have to work out what equipment you need and how much of everything and how your going to carry it all out.)
I chose an experiment involving...
1. Isolating a gram negative, heavy metal resistant bacteria from the environment.
2. Test whether the resistance is plasmid borne.
3. Test whether the resistance gene is stable in the abscence of the heavy metal. (Pretty much - If they don't use it, do they lose it? It's a great little evolution in action experiment.)
And my God, I KNOW what I'm doing!!
Yesterday I made up a batch of nutrient agar and labelled a heap of plates. I was going to actually pour the agar into the plates but couldn't be buggered waiting an hour for the autoclave run so decided to it next week, when I will be plating out a bit of the soil I'm gonna grab from the contaminated OMEX site. No idea what I'll end up growing but hopefully it will all be nice to me and 2 further plating outs of colonies will get me a pure culture of something gram negative and hopefully heavy metal resistant.
Of course, I have to test for the resistance and here's where I come across my first brick wall. I have NO idea what concentrations to use for the heavy metals. I am still researching and considering exactly how I'm going to go about this part of the experiment, but any input and ideas are appreciated. I just haven't thought it about too much yet because it's at least 3 weeks before I get to that stage.
Then of course I have to do the conjugation and figure out precisely how I'll do that. And then the "if you don't use it do you lose it" bit. I kinda know how I could go about that.
Hopefully my mind clicks into action like it did yesterday every week and the whole thing runs smoothly. I actually think it's kinda groovy isolating random stuff from the environment. A few years back we did that and came up with a mysterious bacteria that liked to take a bacillus shape in broth but became coccid on agar! It thoroughly confused everyone for ages until one of the lecturers did a bit of research and found that some bacteria actually DO change shape. We hadn't discovered a new species but it was still very funky.
Oh, and I LOVE having to work individually. Sure we can exchange ideas but essentially we're on our own. I HATE having to work in groups because there are always disagreements or dumb or slack people and things get screwed up. When your on your own you only have yourself to congratulate or blame.
In the labs we have to choose our own experiment to carry out then do it ALL ourselves (of course you can ask one of the tutors but you have to work out what equipment you need and how much of everything and how your going to carry it all out.)
I chose an experiment involving...
1. Isolating a gram negative, heavy metal resistant bacteria from the environment.
2. Test whether the resistance is plasmid borne.
3. Test whether the resistance gene is stable in the abscence of the heavy metal. (Pretty much - If they don't use it, do they lose it? It's a great little evolution in action experiment.)
And my God, I KNOW what I'm doing!!
Yesterday I made up a batch of nutrient agar and labelled a heap of plates. I was going to actually pour the agar into the plates but couldn't be buggered waiting an hour for the autoclave run so decided to it next week, when I will be plating out a bit of the soil I'm gonna grab from the contaminated OMEX site. No idea what I'll end up growing but hopefully it will all be nice to me and 2 further plating outs of colonies will get me a pure culture of something gram negative and hopefully heavy metal resistant.
Of course, I have to test for the resistance and here's where I come across my first brick wall. I have NO idea what concentrations to use for the heavy metals. I am still researching and considering exactly how I'm going to go about this part of the experiment, but any input and ideas are appreciated. I just haven't thought it about too much yet because it's at least 3 weeks before I get to that stage.
Then of course I have to do the conjugation and figure out precisely how I'll do that. And then the "if you don't use it do you lose it" bit. I kinda know how I could go about that.
Hopefully my mind clicks into action like it did yesterday every week and the whole thing runs smoothly. I actually think it's kinda groovy isolating random stuff from the environment. A few years back we did that and came up with a mysterious bacteria that liked to take a bacillus shape in broth but became coccid on agar! It thoroughly confused everyone for ages until one of the lecturers did a bit of research and found that some bacteria actually DO change shape. We hadn't discovered a new species but it was still very funky.
Oh, and I LOVE having to work individually. Sure we can exchange ideas but essentially we're on our own. I HATE having to work in groups because there are always disagreements or dumb or slack people and things get screwed up. When your on your own you only have yourself to congratulate or blame.
