Getting to Work!
Now that my mentor is back in town and recovering from her back injury, I’ve been a lot busier in the lab. Since getting to work, I’ve seen a lot of and done a little Western blotting, where we run proteins via electrophoresis and transfer the protein bands to a PVDF membrane. Once on the membrane, the proteins can be tagged with an antibody, which is in turn identified by a secondary antibody. This secondary antibody is receptive to a solution called Super Signal that, upon mixing, luminesces and can be captured on an imaging device. In this way, we can test for specific proteins, seeing if they exist equally in normal human mammory epithelial cells (HMECs) and in various cancerous cell lines. So far most of my time has been spent focusing on this particular technique. First we started with smaller, pre-packaged gels, but now I’m learning how to pour and set my own larger gel. I’ve also been learning about mixing and preparing all the solutions and samples needed for the procedure. I’ve also worked on bits and pieces of other experiments that my mentor has underway. As my research question becomes more well-defined, hopefully I’ll learn more about these various lab techniques. As for now, I must return to my lab for another day of discovery.