My time in the lab so far has been a productive one where I have grown a lot in my technical lab skills. Prior to this program, my only experience working with laboratory equipment was assigned work in courses I took. With my fourth week of this program complete, I have graduated from shadowing my mentor/practicing simple steps after he does them and now I am more independent in the lab. My mentor tells me what needs to be done to make progress on the project, and I do it. A day in my lab typically consists of adhering to protocols, asking my mentor questions, and loads of pipetting. My mentor provided me with a flash drive full of protocol instructions from miniprep procedures for DNA isolation to protein purification that takes advantage of ELPs temperature-based phase behavior (which is what I primarily focused on this past week). However, I am sure to ask questions whenever something is unclear to ensure I get the best results. For example, this past week the protocol did not specify what percentage of a certain buffer was supposed to be used as my mentor had multiple at his bench, and my mentor clarified before I added it. I am very glad I did because my initial guess was the wrong one. The work I have been doing so far depends heavily on inserting plasmids into and extracting genetic material/proteins from E. coli, so many steps require the use of centrifuges and pipetting. A lot of my typical day consists of pipetting precise amounts of chemicals into larger volumes of liquids.
