Olympic B3 Science Summer Camp 2011
Biotechnology, Biodiversity and Bioinformatics
June 14th - June 30th
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Pictures of Individuals and Class Activities
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June 14 th
Instructors and TAs
Ms Smith (ready to hike)
Porsha 
Ngan 
Richard 
Adam Baxter, Chris Overall and Shatavia Morrison (Bioinformatics dept at UNCC grad students)
Ranger Cooke of the NC Park Service 
Mrs Anderson in the lab 
(Dr. Weller is currently hiding out on her home page)
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June 15 th
A group picture before the hike began
Ranger Kelly Cooke Lecturing on the trail
Collecting samples (Ateeba and Sam, Marcus and Shruti with Porsha, Marquel and Bassam).
Monica recording data in her notebook.
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June 16 th
Getting ready for lab work
Amber and Isabellye Sharon and Jennifer
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June 20 th
Making solutions and dilutions, Pipetting and centrifuging
Shruti and Marcus Monica and Alison
Carolyn Darrah and Austin
Mrs Anderson, Bassam and Marquel wait for the centrifuge
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June 21 st
We began grinding up the samples in dry ice and extracting the carbohydrates and protein away from the nucleic acids (a *very* long day).
The process involves grinding the tissue, vortexing it with buffer and incubating it in a water bath, spinning it in a centrifuge to separate the layers (green from the chlorophyll in th eplants)
extracting the top layer and spinning it again to get a clear solution with a white interphase. Examples of the class in action are shown here.
Sample Grinding technique from Anh Melissa and Carolyn, Jennifer and Bassam
The ground powder, the water bath we used, vortexing the sample and showing off the layers.(thanks to Marquel and Bassam for demonstrating). The final step is to precipitate the DNA with ethanol and spin it to the bottom of the tube.
So much leaf tissue, so little DNA!
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June 22 nd
We continued the preparation of DNA -
The concentration of the DNA was measured using a spectrophotometer, and the spread sheet of values is shown as well:
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June 23 rd
We diluted samples with a heavy solution that contained dyes, using Parafilm to make it wasier to manipulate small volumes, then picked them up and loaded them into the wells of agarose gels.
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June 27 th
We did PCR reactions using the good samples - this makes lots of copies of short bits of the DNA wherever our primers matched on the two opposing strands and were close enough for the enzyme to be efficient.
A simple description with the pictures shown is given here: http://users.ugent.be/~avierstr/principles/pcr.html
Setting up our reactions (Carolyn and Isabellye) and our PCR machine, and our RAPD products on a gel.
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June 30 th
We set up the lab benches so we could demonstrate techniques (spectrophotometry, vortexing and centrifugation, grinding and gels)for the parents.
At 5pm the families arrived and we had show-and-tell (before dinner and certificates), and it is kind of hard to see the actual benches. Ateeba made us a slide show of the pictures included here, as well as some others. Everyone did a great job.
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July 1 st
That's it for the summer, everyone. Thanks for participating, for giving us assessments to let us know what to keep and what to change. I'll continue to post some random pictures below as I work my way through the set.
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| This site is maintained by Dr. Jennifer Weller |
