Nov 4 2013. Back to Basics

GREETINGS VISTORS

Well then....
I returned to the Lab of Doctor James C. Willey today. To my surprised I walked in to this sight:

The door is closed and locked if you can't tell.  What I hadn't mentioned last year was that November is the busiest month of the year for Dr. Willey since he sees patients in addition to his lab work. As a result I had to wait a few minutes for people to show up to even enter the lab.

The first thing that I was supposed to do this morning was get my project assigned to me, but since Doctor Willey had important conference to attend, I was alone for most of the morning. I kept myself entertained in productive fashion. I brought along my data and notes from last year and went over my entire project again. In addition, I looked up the old terms and procedures I needed to know for last year. That was my morning.

After lunch, Xiolu, one of the graduate students working with Doctor Willey, allowed for me to run some of her tests so that I could shake some rust off. I ran some PCR and loads some chips (the majority of the lab stuff I did last year) and it all was second nature. Hopefully I don't screw up her data.

When Doctor Willey returned, he said that I would be working with and under Xiolu for my winterim. She's pretty cool. No like actually she's really sweet and has been nice to me all of the time that I've been at the Willey lab. What she's currently studying is mRNA transcription rates in epithelial cells treated with siRNA. I probably lost a lot of you when I said that.

Breakdown: siRNA are Small Interfering RNA that interfere (who would have guessed) with the transcription of proteins More info here :). So basically, these cells (that are harvested from the cells that line your lungs) have been had some genes silenced so that others can be studied more intensively. The gene that we will be looking at is CEBPG,  a transcription factor, which is important in the testing that Doctor Willey is looking to implement. 

Anyways, even though it was kind of a boring morning, my biological adventure is starting to take shape again. I hope you all follow and enjoy my posts.