This vial that Mustard is holding in the above picture contains all the hopes and dreams of a PhD student. 25 microlitres of clear, colourless liquid. The result of weeks of lab work, and even more weeks of preparation. I felt like I should whisper some sort of hocus-pocus charm over it before putting it in the navy blue bag in the sample fridge for the courier to pick up the next day and transport it to the sequencing company. Instead, I managed to drop it just as I was putting it in the transport bag, spread the liquid into tiny droplets (hence increasing their chance of evaporation) and had to trudge back upstairs to spin it down again before unceremoniously shoving it into the bag and crossing my fingers.
The vial theoretically contains the PCR products of three genes for over 700 specimens of microgastrines. You can learn what a PCR is here, or what microgastrines are here. It took weeks of lab work to put together - we even got to use some robots to help us!
The vial theoretically contains the PCR products of three genes for over 700 specimens of microgastrines. You can learn what a PCR is here, or what microgastrines are here. It took weeks of lab work to put together - we even got to use some robots to help us!
The robot is transferring our PCR product (which contains many, many copies of a particular gene for each of our specimens) from one purple plate to a second purple plate. By using the robot we saved lots of time, removed the chance of human-error (i.e. me losing concentration and putting samples in the wrong places on the plate) and saved our arms from getting a repetitive strain injury.
The sequencing company will take our little vial and run it through a machine called the Illumina Miseq to enable us to learn the genetic code for each of the samples - it is a pretty cool process that we will try and explain in a future blog! In the meantime, cross your fingers for us as we wait not-so-patiently for our results!
The sequencing company will take our little vial and run it through a machine called the Illumina Miseq to enable us to learn the genetic code for each of the samples - it is a pretty cool process that we will try and explain in a future blog! In the meantime, cross your fingers for us as we wait not-so-patiently for our results!
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