From my past summer working a 9 to 5 job at a company I assumed working in a research lab would be similar, but in reality is completely different. In the lab my days vary from coding the entire day on Matlab to running PCR and different gels for the entire day.
On days that are primarily wet lab based I’m working in the lab doing PCR, gel electrophoresis, and purifying and extracting the DNA from the cells that I am working with. The purpose of the PCRs I am running is to create different inserts for the plasmids to insert into the cells. This means that depending on which primers and restriction enzymes I am using I can create circular permutations of the fluorescent proteins, mutations of the proteins, and combinations of the proteins so a red and green protein will be linked together. This process is very important because I will ultimately be comparing the ratio of green to red light so I can determine the best green fluorescent protein. Once I have done the PCR I can go through the ligation process, transformation process, and then let nature take over. The thing that surprised me the most about research was how much waiting there was. In my past jobs you could immediately see if something didn’t work and could immediately make decisions with these results. In the lab it is very different, once I transform my plasmid into the cells I still need to wait at least 2 days, one for the cells to grow on a petri dish, and another day for a colony I choose to grow further. After the two days are over I can collect the plasmids from the cells and get them sequenced to see if the work I did a few days prior worked.
On days where I am waiting for cells to grow I focus my efforts during the day on developing my Matlab code. My code will analyze the colonies and determine the brightest and best fluorescent proteins. Most days combine both coding and working in the lab and everyday brings something new!
