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Week 10: Last Week

Submitted by Melissa Kelley on August 17, 2011 - 1:54pm

Week 9: Final Stretch

Submitted by Melissa Kelley on August 7, 2011 - 8:07pm

Week 8: FISH and PCR

Submitted by Melissa Kelley on July 31, 2011 - 6:32pm

I can't believe there are only two weeks left in this internship! It seems like summer weather just got here. And there is quite a bit of work left to be done.

Week 7: Field trips!

Submitted by Melissa Kelley on July 24, 2011 - 3:24pm

Week 6: Continuing to optimize FISH

Submitted by Melissa Kelley on July 16, 2011 - 8:43pm

Week 4: Microscopy

Submitted by Melissa Kelley on July 3, 2011 - 10:36pm
This week, my project was focused around learning and optimizing FISH (fluorescent in situ hybridization) microscopy. The plan is to look at a number of soil samples from Antarctica using this technique. If successful, the bacteria in these soils will fluoresce and we will be able to take pictures of them. FISH is somewhat tricky, as the procedure takes nearly a full day, and there are a lot of important steps to get right. We also spent several days making buffers and staining bacteria to get the right concentration of the fluorescent stain DAPI.

Week 3: Waiting

Submitted by Melissa Kelley on June 26, 2011 - 10:38am
It has become clear this week that the process of doing research can involve a lot of waiting. We have been working on making slush agar tubes for iron oxidizing bacteria, in order to reinoculate bacteria that have been growing for multiple weeks. It sounds simple enough, but because this has to be done in a sterile and anaerobic manner, the process stretched out over days. We also had to confirm that there were bacteria actually growing at different bands in the original tubes.

Week 2: Getting organized

Submitted by Melissa Kelley on June 18, 2011 - 11:26pm
There has been an overarching theme of getting organized during these last few days. This week I spent a lot more time trying to update my lab book to a point that someone else could pick up my book and know what I had done that day without having to ask me about it. I am also having to learn how to organize my time better. There are a number of things I know how to do now in the lab, and it has been left largely up to me to keep on task.

Week 1: Orientation and introductions

Submitted by Melissa Kelley on June 13, 2011 - 11:18am

After completing my first week of this internship with CMOP, I can tell that my project will be very interesting. I am working in Brad Tebo's lab with Roberto Anitori. The project focuses on microbes collected from ice caves in Antarctica, which oxidize manganese or iron from volcanic glass. My work for these next nine weeks will be focused on culturing these microbes, and identifying them using various methods.

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