First Post 2009!

This semester as my final semester within the AMGEN BIOMINDS program I will be concluding my participation in my work with Dr. Ricardo Chiesa. This semester we will have three other students working with us, two freshmen from the MBRS-RISE program and another student from the BIOL 4990 intro to research course.

At the end of the last semester, we froze the C. elegans in -80 with 30% glycerol. Our first goal was to “revive” these nematodes and make sure that are functional. We have already began this processes, we defrosted, centrifuged, and resuspended. Then we transfered to plates previously seeded with OP50. These have been observed and all seems to be working fine. 

Our next goal was to identify strains lacking possible target genes. I was able to do this last week and the strains have been identified and purchased, arriving sometime this week. Our goal for the semester is to grow these nematodes in larger quantities and isolate their proteins for western blot analysis of the possible effects of NPY in the CNS. These results will be validated comparing between the wild strain and the KO’s since they lack proteins we believe are needed for the pathway. 

This semester is different from the last because, we now know how to culture the nematodes and this facilitates the protein extraction processes. We will use new techniques such as protein isolation, quantification and western blotting for identification.