Today, we continued work on PCR and gel electrophoresis in Dr. Wachter's lab. We learned that it is absolutely imperative to have a steady hand when placing the mix of buffer, dye, and polymerase into a gel well due to its small size ( at least it was for me...since I had to redo it!). Fortunately, we actually had the dye. The researcher informed us that sometimes this has to be done with colorless solution so the level of difficulty is increased. We waited for an hour, added another dye, and mixed it for 15 minutes and then saw the sample DNA along with the segment we had replicated underneath UV-C light- picture forthcoming here.
We also listened to the research of Dr. Wachter and I learned the real-world applications of her work. Essentially, if you can input GFP- green flourescent protein- into a nematode (it is originally from a jellyfish) and target nerve cells to flouresce specifically when they are firing, you can use this particular protein as a "biosensor." Since, CFTR malfunction is the main cause of Cystic Fibrosis, we could then use a GFP clone to follow the misfunction via flourescence lighting up a specific piece of information such as chloride transport in this case.
Lastly, GFP takes aboput an hour to turn green but an hour may be too long with live cells so Nam- a researcher- is currently working on the development of GFP variants that mature- "turn green" - more rapidly and this is done by creating a DNA library to look for the ones that flouresce quicker- similar to artificial selection in dogs- i.e. breeding selectively for specific morphological or behavioral traits.
Question to ponder:
Can we improve upon nature?
Certainly depends upon specific conditions.
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