Week 1: Getting Used to Lab

My name is Isla McKerrow and I am an undergraduate intern with the Institute of Environmental Health at OHSU. This summer, I am working in Dr. Holly Simon's lab, under the mentorship of graduate student Kiley Seitz. My project is entitled "The Potential Effects of the Invasive Gastropod Potamopyrgus antipodarum on the Columbia River Estuary." The invasive New Zealand mud snail, P. antipodarum, has been an invasive species in the waterways of the western United States for years. It produces a good deal of ammonia as a waste product, which could have deleterious effects on the surrounding environment. However, there are many naturally occuring ammonia-oxidizing archaea also in these areas, which uptake ammonia and could prove beneficial in managing the effects of P. antipodarum. For my project, I am collecting sediment samples and dissecting them into depth-specific segments, before extracting the DNA from these samples and analyzing it for the presence of the ammonia-oxiding gene, AmoA. 

My first week I spent primarily getting acquainted with where everything was in the lab, as well as with what my responsibilities would be. I read a variety of papers on both P. antipodarum and ammonia-oxidizing archaea, AOA, to familiarize myself with the project. I also learned how to do some of the basic procedures that will be crucial for the rest of my project, such as the sediment coring itself, as well as molecular techniques like DNA purification and running gel electrophoresis to determine the integrity of the DNA.