Week 8

 

I spent most of last week trying to find information from different resources for my research paper. Now, I'm piled up with lots of information that needs to be put together to build my paper. I realized that how writing a research paper can be though. But the bright side of it is that I'm learning a lot. tomorrow will be my first experience on extracting DNA, and I'm so exited about it. I hope everything goes well, and I get interesting results. As I said I'm going to see if the bacteria grown from my skin is the same as my known bacteria (staphylococcus aurous). I also incubated my samples today to grow over night, so I have fresh samples for tomorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azCozArFK9M

 

 

Week seven

 

Extracting DNA is one the most important scientific discoveries as it helps human and their wellbeing in numerous ways. Nowadays, isolating DNA and observing its characteristic and functions can be done in order to classify them or do comparison on different DNAs for different reasons. Some of the reasons for extracting a DNA are to find out about mutations, paternity, genetic disorders, forensic, and for diagnostic reasons. Extracting DNA opens an access to genetic material, and to study it and manipulate it in order to improve human life and the world surrounding them. My research is on extracting DNA from bacteria on human skin and staphylococcus aurous to see if the two are the same or not. Two colonies observed to be so much alike. To take a step further, more experiments are needed to be done. Colony morphology for the bacteria grown from human skin was so close to that of staphylococcus aurous. Series of tests will be done to determine the truth to this hypothesis, and to make the result definite DNAs of two species will be sequenced. If the results to any of the steps don’t support the hypothesis, further experiments will be terminated and conclusion will be made.

Google Image

     Week Six

I wanted to extract DNA out of the bacteria that I grew from my skin last week, but unfortunately I got so sick and wasn't able to do the experiment. What really interests me is extracting DNA from different people's cell and compare their different characteristic with each other. I'm really curious to see if DNA gets shorter by us aging, or if tow people that are at the same age would have DNAs of different lengths because of their different genetics. I'm really into looking at researches that have been done on how to stop shortening the DNA or how to inject foreign DNA into our DNA in order to treat a disease and be successful to pass the foreign DNA through the immune system without having to hurt the white cells. I know it sounds like a big project, but I'm considering those as a future project and for right now, I just want to start with anything that leads to that goal at the end. Below is a video that I found interesting. please take a few minutes to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de0aSMxeYmg

 

Blog Bio 

My name is Mitra, and I'm from Iran. I moved here three years ago from Turkey. I lived about three years in Turkey and had a really good experience living there. I loved that country so much that I'm planning on going back and spending more time in there later on. But I have to finish schooling first if I want to live there for a while. I'm still going to visit though, sometime soon. I started attending Phoenix College a year after I got here, and I'm almost done with my associate. Now, It's time to decide about my career.

I really like doing research, but I never had the opportunity to do one before. I have a little bit of engineering background, so all I was doing was about math and physics and never really biology or anything from that kind. After having my first biology class, I started feeling even more interested in research, and it's kind of tilting my mind towards research as a career. When my family is here I'll be having more peace of mind, and that will help me to think more clear and eventually decide what I want to do with research. I'm from a big family and have four more siblings. They will be all here next year. I can't wait to see them again. They are so supportive and loving, and I'm blessed that I get to have them around me again.

I want to share a picture that I took from a stream that was running behind my house in turkey.

First Week

 

Hi everyone,

I started my lab work tow weeks in to the semester so I kind of felt that I'm behind. I also felt lost. By the time passed a little, I found myself more comfortable doing the procedures and I also got to know you and to ask your help in certain areas that I needed help with. I'm glad that I'm finally part of the program and get to learn a lot of things that I wouldn't otherwise. I'm really excited and can't wait to see how much knowledge I will gain at the end of the semester. I'll be most probably transferring next semester to ASU west campus, but if I end up staying here I hope to have enough knowledge by then to do an specific research on the possibility of stopping or slowing down DNA shortening.

 

 

A picture of our lab stockroom

 

 

Fifth week

 

 

last week I figured out that my bacteria was Gram Positive Cocci. This week, I did more tests to figure out my unknown. I added hydrogen Peroxide on my bacteria sample for Catalase Test and saw it's bobbling, so I moved to the next step. My bacteria had changed the color of the indicator dye in the glucose and lactose indicating the change of the PH in the medium, and bobbles were trapped in Durham tube. So the result was positive, and I had to look at the result on my MSA Test. Sure enough that it had turned from red to yellow. Now with having a positive result for my last test I can conclude that my unknown is staphylococcus aureus. I also incubated an MSA and a TSA plate with bacteria from my skin. next week, I will extract DNA from the bacteria that I had initially as my unknown and the one that grew from my skin to see if those are the same type of bacteria. It will be exciting if I find the similar result.

Glucose, lactose, and MSA plate after incubating my initial unknown

 MSA and TSA plates before inoculation

 

Grown bacteria that I got from my skin 

 

Inoculated broth with bacteria from MSA plate with grown bacteria from my skin