S-STEM Scholar Baylee Herman's blog

On 9/21 we researched background on biofilm to make sure this is what we wanted to work on. On 9/22 Rebecca and I formed a plan for our research project. We came up with the idea to use different concentrations of several metal ions to test the relation to growth of biofilm. We made a flow chart to map out the process and find an overview of our procedures. So far we have run into the problem of the days not matching with the lab schedules. Although we are off to a slow start, I feel like next week we will really be able to begin our project.

On 9/14 we did a gram stain on D. Rad. Unfortunately there were not enough cells and we did not heat fix long enough to see any result under the microscope. The cells began to wash away during the process. On 9/15 we decided to reattempt gram staining on P. fluorescens. This time we heat fixed even more so the cells did not wash away. The sample was a bit older coming from August, therefore the cells appeared as debris rather than clumps of cells.

On 9/1 in lab we went over the gram staining process as well as viewed the results under a microscope. There were no complications other than some imperfections on the microscope slide. A large pink oval appeared when viewing. We also observed Chad running his protein gel. These gels are ran vertically rather than the gels we have ran in the past that were done vertically. It took 30 minutes to let the gel bands separate before cracking off the plastic and letting it sit on the rocker over the weekend.  The most important tip Chad gave us was to make sure the gel did not fold on itself.