Welcome back to the blog!
This week has been a very interesting one for me. Some good news is that my on-site advisor recovered from his pneumonia this week so I was finally able to meet him in person at ASU and hear his thoughts on my experiment. Unfortunately, more problems were raised during my meeting and my experiment had to be completely scrapped.
In my previous two posts, I talked about how seriously the government controls the experimentation of bacteria and the fact that I was not able to get access to the plasmids that I needed for my experiment (the most important and irreplaceable part). These problems came back to haunt me this week when my advisor said that he would not be able to purchase the plasmids because the government requires him to send an approved list of materials that he will be using at his lab a year in advance and the campus will not purchase any new materials that he is not using for his classes. If I were to use the plasmids in my experiment, I would have to do a lot of paperwork beforehand and gain approval from both the government and the university and I would be under constant surveillance from government officials during my experiment (my on-site advisor stated that he would be uncomfortable with having cops roaming his labs constantly). I would also have to familiarize myself with the long list of laws regarding experimentation on bacteria because if I were to unknowingly break any of those laws (i.e. if there was a breach in containment and some of the modified bacteria got out of the lab) then I would be in trouble with homeland security and be labeled as a biological terrorist. Due to all these complications, I had to completely abandon my experiment and try to come up with a new one. The good news is that I will be able to reuse my original experiment in college.
For my new experiment, my on-site advisor gave me a list to bacteria and the pGLO plasmid to work with. The pGLO plasmid is the plasmid that makes bacteria glow under UV light (we did the same experiment in Mr. Gilbride’s biology class). My task is to make an original idea by twisting some aspect of this basic experiment. The hard part is that this experiment has been reinvented so many ways because of its simplicity and so coming up with an original idea will be a challenge. Hopefully I will have a finished plan for my new experiment soon.
Next week I will be taking a break so there will be no new posts, but I will be posting the week after about how my experiment is going. See you all next time and hope you are all having a wonderful time.
- CJ Pimentel
I'm sorry to hear that your original idea had gotten scrapped! We definitely don't want you to get into trouble either. It's unfortunate but I'm sure the your new idea will be exciting. I am alittle confused as to what you are supposed to do though. Is that what you are coming up with now?
ReplyDeleteThat's definitely unfortunate that you had to scrap your entire project! I know how hard you've been planning this since the beginning of the school year, but I understand that you were left with no other choice. I am sure you will come up with a new project that will be just as fascinating. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry the original plan for your project didn't work out, but now that you know where your limitations are I'm sure your new idea will be successful and should flow well! Keep up the good work and I'm excited to see your upcoming findings!
ReplyDeleteThat's the truth of research guys.. you build as you go and your idea almost never pan out but you have done really well.
ReplyDeleteMs. Nath