Week 9

Welcome back and I hope everyone is doing well as well as we enter these final weeks of our Senior Projects!

This week was my final week at the lab because I do not have enough remaining time to run more trials. I am so happy that my experiment was finally able to produce results. Though the data that I gathered was minimal and did not answer my hypothesis, I was still able to produce something that shows my project had some progress and at this point with all of the setbacks, I will take anything that I can get. Usually I would be mad or disappointed with not accomplishing everything that I told myself that I would, but I’m just relieved and happy to have something. One of the lab assistants that I was working with told me that I accomplished more than what most bio undergrads there have done which made me laugh a bit (and then I realized that they apparently couldn’t follow instructions which means those lab assistant jobs are mine).

My data at the lab is small and probably won’t produce any waves in the scientific community but I can use the data and experience along with my connection with Mr. Tahmahkera to try more ambitious research projects at ASU in the future. That and I can learn fun new things at the lab while working with the people there. For example, I found out that you can make glow-in-the-dark plants with the materials at ASU’s labs from Brandon which is something that I look forward to doing.

Now that I was finally able to get data from my experiment, I remembered that I had other parts of my project that I needed to do other than the PowerPoint presentation. I have been so absorbed with trying to produce results at the lab that I forgot that I had to also work on a research paper. I decided to start working on the paper this week but I remembered that I rushed the research for this second project and forgot to save the research papers that I used. So, I had a fun time doing a scavenger hunt through my internet history looking for the research papers that I used to come up with my project and yes it was as painful.

My time at ASU’s labs have been fun and frustrating but I am grateful for the experience.

- CJ Pimentel

Week 8

Hello, I hope everyone is doing well and welcome back!

This week has been an interesting one as I have been hit with drawbacks in my project that I did not see coming. Last week, I got a minor cold (could be from the bacteria I’m working with or maybe flu season is here already) and that cold spread to the rest of my family this week. I was unable to go to Arizona State University and continue doing my research due to the fact that my mom was sick and that I needed her to be with me at the lab (one of the drawbacks of being under 18 while working in research). I’m not sure whether to laugh or be mad at the irony of being set back by bacteria while working with bacteria but I now better understand the reason why universities provide so much health services after experiencing just how much being sick can set one back on their work.

My inability to go to the labs gave me the opportunity to think about my senior project presentation. I will not be able to talk in depth about the data and results for my project because of the setbacks and the fact that my project required much more time than what I was given to produce significant results. I decided that I would focus more on the experience and how research really is as a career or for graduate students. I hope that I will be able to produce even the smallest results when I return to the labs to run my final trial next week. Mrs. Nath brought up an important point in my meeting this week which was that there is the possibility that the general public, who does not understand the difficulties of research, may view my lack of results as a product of laziness or incompetence. I hope that I will be able to produce results so I can at least show that some progress was made in my time at ASU’s labs.

This week was uneventful compared to my previous weeks but it gave me the breathing room to think about my project’s presentation and what I should do in the the very real case that I did not produce any results in my remaining time at the ASU labs.

I will see you all next week where I will hopefully have at least the smallest bit of data.

- CJ Pimentel

Week 7

Hello and welcome back everyone!

In one of my first posts I stated how I looked forward to genetically modifying bacteria because one can not control the outcomes and the possibility of finding something new. I also said how I would probably regret regret saying that in the future and it is starting to look like I was right.

My current research is looking into how efficiently bacteria can take free floating genetic material from the environment and integrate them into their own genetic makeup to see if the rise of genetically modified organisms from companies pose an imminent danger as sources for genetic material which could lead to uncontrolled pathogenic bacterial evolution.

I am comparing the efficiency of bacteria who are induced into transformation with calcium chloride and comparing it to bacteria who are left to take in plasmids by themselves. My experiment is basically a modified version of the pGLO gene experiment (a simple experiment you can Google).

As you all know, every experiment needs a control group in order to see if the results of the experiment are actually significant. This week, my project’s control groups failed because the bacteria did not grow in the way that I needed them to and so the experimental group’s results couldn’t be verified. I had to completely start over and remake my plates because it seems that the ampicillin in the plates denatured (having to start over repeatedly seems to be a common theme).

Thanks to my experience in research, I learned a valuable yet frustrating truth. One person can run thousands of trials before their experiment actually produces presentable results because success is low especially when it comes into delving into an area that no one else has worked on (and when working with something fickle like life).

The silver lining in all of this is that the constant restarts have given me the chance to become familiar with the lab equipment. I can now operate most of the equipment and perform all of the mandatory lab practices without needing constant reminders of what to do which is going to save me time if I have to redo something in the future (which i probably will).

I hope that my project will be able to produce presentable results by the end of my Senior Project but if it doesn’t then I will at least have the skills and experience that I picked up working at the labs. See you all next week.

- CJ Pimentel