I finally had the chance to do some actual work
this week involving the collection of samples and working on extracting genetic
material from the sample collected. Oliver and I collected a sample of
water from the cooling towers and we will be filtrating and extracting (if there
is any) genetic material from our samples this week.
Up until now I had been doing a great deal of
background reading to familiarize myself with the bacteria, its significance
and the methods that we would use in order to positively identify the presence
of Legionella pneumophila.
First up in the process was the actual collection of the sample.
Down below you'll see the location and a brief description of where the
sample was taken from. Once the sample was collected, it must undergo a
filtration process in order to concentrate the contents that were in the sample
into 5mL of water so that we can work with it better in the lab. (FYI: Video is loud)
Once the samples have been concentrated the DNA (if
there is any) of whatever was in that water is extracted from that sample using
a Soil DNA Extraction Kit. What this kit does is, take all of the genetic
material that was in that sample and extract it from the organisms that were
residing in the sample of water.
This was my first time going through all of these steps and I think I
was able to get through everything successfully, with the help of my teammates
(Daisy and Zaira) of course! I guess that's all for now, tomorrow we'll
get a chance to use and learn how to use the new NanoDrop machine so I'm really
excited about that.
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