So I forgot to do this last week because my parents picked me straight up from the train station on Friday to go to Maryland, but I wrote it on the train to Philadelphia and will submit it during one of my breaks at work.
The first week was a time where I learned more about my experiment and what I would be doing then I ever thought I would. After the spring term class, I thought I understood my project but in reality I understood everything wrong. Let me make some clarifications: we are NOT trying to cut the disulfide bonds, we are looking for them because they are one of the most stable bonds and securely hold the portion of the protein above it. This is the portion of the protein that we will be modifying in order for it to be modified with a peptide WP9QY (YCWSQYLCY). Another thing to note is when I was reading my primary literature, I had NO idea what YCWSQYLCY meant. But now I understand that each letter represents a different amino acid, its just written a cool/lazy scientific way. I can finally say I clearly understand what we are going to do now, and how we are going to go on with our procedure.
The second day in the lab I followed the graduate student, who was doing her own project. Although she has a different project it is similar to Dr. Li's. That day she was tagging Human Serum Albumin to see how it would react in contact with another protein. That day I perfected my pipette precision and watched her as she reviewed Gel Electrophoresis for me. The next three days, I focused solely on getting to know the two structures I would be working with. I made computer models of both the structures and found ways to tag the disulfide bonds, and the amino acids we were going to target. The models were tedious because I had to find the exact structures and make sure nothing else was attached to it. Once it got onto the program I could rotate the screen and easily modify it. It was a busy week, and I am looking forward to do even more work next week!
Rahul Lakhanpal
The first week was a time where I learned more about my experiment and what I would be doing then I ever thought I would. After the spring term class, I thought I understood my project but in reality I understood everything wrong. Let me make some clarifications: we are NOT trying to cut the disulfide bonds, we are looking for them because they are one of the most stable bonds and securely hold the portion of the protein above it. This is the portion of the protein that we will be modifying in order for it to be modified with a peptide WP9QY (YCWSQYLCY). Another thing to note is when I was reading my primary literature, I had NO idea what YCWSQYLCY meant. But now I understand that each letter represents a different amino acid, its just written a cool/lazy scientific way. I can finally say I clearly understand what we are going to do now, and how we are going to go on with our procedure.
The second day in the lab I followed the graduate student, who was doing her own project. Although she has a different project it is similar to Dr. Li's. That day she was tagging Human Serum Albumin to see how it would react in contact with another protein. That day I perfected my pipette precision and watched her as she reviewed Gel Electrophoresis for me. The next three days, I focused solely on getting to know the two structures I would be working with. I made computer models of both the structures and found ways to tag the disulfide bonds, and the amino acids we were going to target. The models were tedious because I had to find the exact structures and make sure nothing else was attached to it. Once it got onto the program I could rotate the screen and easily modify it. It was a busy week, and I am looking forward to do even more work next week!
Rahul Lakhanpal
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