Karen's+Blog

Karen's Blog

My day has started well, After orientation and dropping off other students at their assigned stations, I began my day. The setting here is a biochemistry lab and molecular genetics in the reserach building. There, you'll see lots of chemicals in every counter and a bunch of scientific objects. Dr. David Bentley couldn't be here but, Ben, one of his workers, was assigned to help me make DNA! yeah DNA! Isn't cool? and on my first day. Well first we got some cells, and from the cells we'll get DNA. we also got a rack where a tube will abstract the DNA.On a tube, we added buffers which are chems that will destroy the cell membranes and other wastes. To the frozen cells we added other chems to destroy all the things we don't need from the cells. For those things to really be destroyed, we put the cells tube to a machine that will spin it and separate the DNA from the waste. After 10 mins of spinning, we added the now-almost-done-DNA to the other tube with chemicals so that the other chems can absorb it


 * 11:30am**

After adding more chemicals, now we got our DNA from our cells. After talking more to Ben, he explined to me the purpose of the lab and their work. so basically, the want to better understand the relationship between DNA, RNA, and proteins. How DNA converts into RNA and how RNA polymerase akes the protein in our body. They said that they really don't know how the happens and how they all do that, that's why they do all the research for. They do more stuff related to that and that'll take me a summer for me to really know and undertand it.


 * 1:15pm**

It seems like Ben went ahead with the experinment we began because went I came back from lunch he had already tested how much DNA we have done. He took a picture of it where it shows how much we obtained, so he kinda lost me there, but I got to help him with one of his experiments and it was fun to pour chemicals in other little tubes. It was great so far, lets see how tomorrow goes.

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So I got here at around 8:45 am and I was ready to work and finally meet Dr. Bentley but unfortunately, he couln't be here today either because he's busy writing a very important report, but atleast he left instructed something for me to do. What I'll be doing is cutting a piece of plasma using chemicals. From the part age 1 to xhol (those are also the the chemicals we'll be using) which is 1 kp long or something like that, but anyway, Ben pretty much left me on my own doing these things and and mixing tiny ml of chemicals such as DNA, age 1, xho1, 10x buffer, and H2o. He was helping me and I got the hang of it. Now we're just on the chemicals to mix well and for some gel we made to cool down. (the gel is used to measure how much we got from it.)=====


 * 1:35 am**

So our gel cooled down and became stiff. This is what we wanted because now we can just add our DNA, the cut and uncut plasma. After adding them in little wells of the gel, we put them in water where we'll be running electricity to see if we got the right cut. after an hour of electricity, we took the gel out to take a violet ray pic and see a better view to see if we got the right cut of the plasma we wanted. And the experiment was a success!!!! (I have pics to show)

April 1st 10:46 am
As I came in, I finally got to meet Dr. Bentley. we just said hello, then he dissapiered. Seems like he's still busy, but anyway we're just finishing what we started yesterday and starting somthing new. It's called PCR (Plumeries Chain Reaction.) Right now I don't know much about it, but i'll see if I can catch up to Ben. Okay, so the basic here is that Ben will be making lots of compies of a certain spot of DNA.

2:16 pm
So the PCR is actually something that Dr. Bentley needs Ben to do and I'm not getting much of it since i won't be her anymore to work on it, bu the last hours that I've been here I got so many things out of. And eventhough Dr. bentley didn't have time to answer a few of my quiestions, the rest of his workers did. By asking questions, I learned the real purpose of the laband the things that everyone does here. I really admire these students and I can't really explain the things I learned not just about RNA, but science itself. I can't wait to come back and keep learning from this experience and many more to come.

Eventhough this wasn't what i was hoping for, (like i wanted to work with patients rather than researchers) it was a good experience to learn more about other health careers. The people there put a lot of dedication to their work and they seem to be happy with what they do. Also, this experience made me realize that this is something that I wouldn't like to do for a career. I don't think I could be able to wake up and go research for DNA, RNA, and proteins. I want to work with patients and be able to help them. I think I could be more helpful in a poeple setting. Also, in the setting I was in, you can't really apply HIPPA because the lab wasn't a people research lab such as blood or other fluids. So there wasn't any confidientality to apply to this setting since there weren't any patients. Besides, what would a patient be doing in a RNA reserach lab?

These are the questions that were asked to Ben:
I worked as TA in college (Snow College, Utha) for a lab class in Biology and Chemistry setting the labs. I liked being a technician, then I came to this campus and Dr. Bentley hired me.
 * 1)** **How did you decide to choose the career health that you are in?**

It's not very direct since we don't work with patients, it's a research lab. But have done research for proteins in cancer. We also explain how genes make protein that makes our body and the understanding of how it works and what happens when it fails. Have biology and chemistry background and a little bit of math. Skills in writing, reading, and presenting. you need to be curious, reseliant to failure, stubborn, exitable, and critical. You have to have own evaluation of data and consider the suorse and just because it's published, doesn't mean that is true or that you have to agree to that.
 * 2) How does your part of the health care profession relates to daily life?**
 * 3) Requierments to get into this profession:**

That is very exiting. I love learning and i get to use my hands on work. Also, you never know where you gonna be at the nd of the day or when the exiting part will come.
 * 4) What do you like about what you do?**

That it's no 9 to 5 joband you can't get away from it when you're working on something. Sometimes you need a break. We don't like repetition and it can get old when you test things over again.
 * 5) What don't you like?**