Today I got to do something brand new and super awesome. D wasn't in the lab today, so I was more on my own today than ever. I got to lab bright and early; I'm always one of the first people in the lab. BC wanted to have a chat about the plans for this week. This is why I have a fantastic PI. Not everyone in the SURF program gets to work so close to their PI. It's not like I spend all of my time answering to BC, but she's definitely there to help me. Some people never see their PI. I think M said that if he needed his PI, he essentially had to schedule a meeting time before he could see him. I think that's crazy. I think you should be willing to be available to work with the undergraduates if you volunteer to have one. But what do I know? So I have quite the to-do list for the week. I'm really excited about getting to practice my scoring some more, but that'll have to wait at least until tomorrow.
This morning was the lab meeting. I wasn't sure I was going to have to attend, but I went nonetheless. It was really interesting stuff. R and Bo presented some of the things they learned from the ABCAM conference that was last week. I was supposed to go, but things were just a little too complicated and I wasn't allowed to go. I don't really know enough yet to really join in, but I tried to listen intently. I hope no one noticed that I was practically falling asleep during the meeting. oops. In all honesty, I enjoyed hearing about what other people were doing, even though I didn't really understand any of it.
After lunch the fun really started. I got settled at my disecting scope and pulled out one of the plates of my newest strain. I set out on an L4 hunt. L4 is the last larval stage for C. elegans. They're characterized by a white circle on their ventral side, with a black dot in the center. This is the vulva. This indicates that the individual is nearing sexual maturity. I am terrible at picking out L4s, even though I try really hard. Actually, I'm just bad at picking worms in general, but finding L4s in a mess of other stages is even harder. So I finally got a plate with a few L4s when BC came in to see how I was doing. She checked out my plate and confirmed that I did have some L4s on the plate....then she told me that I was going to need more. So in like 5 minutes she made me three more plates of worms. Mind you, it took me over an hour to make my one plate. I really really suck. haha. Of course it's hard to compare myself to someone who's been doing this for years and years. But we put all the plates of L4s into the incubator at 33 degrees to heat shock them. I have to come back into the lab in a couple hours to take them out of the incubator so they don't die. That'd be bad. Heat shocking causes nondisjunction in gamete production, which leads to an increased number of male offspring. Hermaphrodites have an XX genotype much like human females. Male worms have an XO genotype. This means that they only have one sex chromosome which is obviously different from the XY genotype of human males. It's really interesting that males only arise from an accident in chromosome segregation. So I made males today. It makes for a sort of interesting story. I need to produce enough males to do some crosses. I'll be mating males that I create with hermaphrodites of of the same strain to really get a good number of males. Since the males have the XO genotype and half of the gametes produced will be lacking a sex chromosome, about 50% of the progeny will be males. At this point I'll really have a good amount of males and I'll be able to set up another cross and then I'll be doing some characterization of the mutation. It'll be really cool and I'm looking forward to it. Unfortunately, each life cycle takes 3-6 days so I won't be working on this for a while.
Tonight is my first GRE course. It runs from 6:30-9:00. I really hope to get something from this class. I know the GRE isn't really the most important part of the package when applying to graduate school, but I'd like to do well. I'm not the only one excited for class. B is looking forward to it even more than I am. I think I just want the materials more than anything. haha.
Well, it's time for me to pack up and leave the lab. I've gotta run and get dinner so I can be back to rescue my worms. I don't want to kill more than I have to...that's not my style. Plus if I kill my males, I have to attempt to find more L4s and, well, I don't really enjoy that yet. haha.
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