The Slightly-Better Managed Week

Hey all! This week in lab has barely started. I'm blogging early so I can spend more time procrastinating on my research paper rough draft and poster. Whew I cant believe its already that time of year again!

Last week I ran one more PCR on my DNA samples to see if I could get them to work. This time Matt fiddled with the protocol a little bit, making the temperature changes' duration longer. We were hoping to get some better results this time.
Instead the results we got were strange and conflicting. The universal primer Matt gave me amplified all four of my samples but the widow primers I used worked less then 50% of the time. The strangest result was that none of the widow spider primers amplified the known widow spider web DNA (called +C in this experiment). Unfortunately the sample size I'm using is too small and does not allow for any real statistical analysis. I'm not really sure where to go from here.

The Mismanaged Week

This week has been long and unproductive, or at least it feels that way. I feel that I don't manage my time as well as I could and end up paying for it at the end of the semester. I always feel like I have plenty of time to do things, put stuff off til the last minuet, and am always rushing to get things done.

So this Tuesday, instead of going to lab, I went to my mom's house and filed my taxes. I owe but no matter. So now I'm rushing at the end of the week to get some lab hours in.

After another inconclusive PCR I've decided to change some of the steps in the PCR protocol and see if that helps. If I don't get clear banding this time I'll have to run another DNA extraction because I'm out of DNA from one of my samples.

Here are my newest gels, see how the banding is not clear except HWUB and FSEUB. The A designation is the first PCR I did run through the thermocycler one more time to see if that increased visible bands. The B is another PCR I ran to see if the mixing of the sample was the problem.