Ma'Chesha Banks's blog

 My last week was all about perfecting my presentation and working on my paper.  I can't believe how fast the summer went by! It feels like just yesterday when I first arrived. I had so much fun here at CMOP learning and working in the lab! Thie internship was definitely a learning experience and I'm so glad I was able to participate.  This experience definitely helped me grow as a scientist and student while exposing me to different career options.  It's definitely sad to leave, but I will be taking everything I learned here with me in the future!

 This week was all about finally starting to run experiments on the streptavidin beads. Since we were done with all our temperature experiments and had GREAT results, we moved on to see what we could find with project 2.  Unfortunately, our days at Sharp were unsuccessful because the streptavidin-biotin experiments did not work out great. We found no trend in any of the sensor array responses we gathered but we definitely kept trying. The rest of the week at CMOP was focused on writing my paper and working on my final presentation. One week left!

 This week started and ended with fun field trips! As usual, Monday was a Sharp day, where we continued our temperature tests at the new 30C and 45C temperatures.  Tuesday, we took a trip to Bonneville Dam, which was interesting and also very informative. We were able to take a tour of the dam and see where the fish passed through, which was my favorite part. After the trip, we had a nice little picnic, then headed to Multnomah Falls where the other interns and I took a one mile hike. The view at the top was beautiful!

 This week was a very busy week for me!  Monday started off with mid-term presentations. It was very interesting to see what all my fellow interns have been working on these past five weeks. After presentations, Vena and I made the trip to Sharp where we completed our temperature tests.  Unfortunately, when we presented to data to Andrei on Tuesday, it was too variable to determine much from (what temperature works best for the multiple probe sensor array).

 This week was all about continuing the temperature experiments from last week.  Due to the fact that our gathered data is still very variable, we decided to add more experiments for each temperature. For the next week, we will still be testing temperatures to gather more statistics.  On Thursday,  we tried an experiment with the streptavidin beads and the biotinylated DNA targets. Unfortunately, the experiment was not successful so the next goal is to try again with a new temperature.  Hopefully, next week will be more a successful week! 

 This week was all about testing different concentrations to see which would give a better signal.  Monday, we received a SLA sensor in our lab! Now we will be able run tests here in the lab when we are not at Sharp.  After attending a meeting with Andrei, Mariya and Holly, Vena and I traveled to Sharp to run tests on multiple and single probe dies using a high concentration of DNA at 0.1 ug/ul. On Tuesday, we tested the dies at a lower concentration of  0.01 ug/ul to see whether the signal was better.

Week three consisted of me practicing doing things on my own.  On Monday, at Sharp, Andrei trained Vena and I more on using the sensors and how to run ADK, HLY, and STX targets. He also taught us how to hydrate the sensor chips, or dies, and run data analysis. After our thorough description of duties, we were left to run a couple tests on our own for the remainder of the day. Tuesday was mostly about putting what we learned on Monday to use. We ran two HLY, STX, and ADK target tests on multiple and single probes in order to see what type of signals we would get.

 Week one of the CMOP internship started off slow, but I learned many things that I find will help me along the way.  On the first day, the other interns and I arrived at 9 a.m. to receive orientation.  I was introduced to  the other interns and learned more about CMOP.  After being oriented with the program, we all branched off, where I was able to meet Vena, my mentor.  Mariya, who also works in the lab I will be working in, gave another quick tour of the building  and lab.