It's great to be back in the lab!... well sort of. I definitely don't miss the delectable aroma of E. coli. But it's nice to work with awesome equipment and know that you're doing something actually productive and brand new.
So, after my break from the lab, I returned today to find out that the next three weeks are going to be extremely busy for me. So basically I have been running one 3+ hour experiment every day. I've done that for three different E. coli strains for different magnitudes of osmotic shocks. Now, I have to run 6-9 20 minute experiments AND the one 3+ hour experiment every day. It's a lot harder to increase my output by 600-900%! However, it should definitely be worthwhile since I'll be able to collect a ton of data.
Sadly, I only ran one experiment today. :( This was due to technical difficulties with the optical trap. It took more than two hours to fix and recalibrate. Also, I made a few errors in the slides I prepared. Good thing I have 3 more weeks to practice.
Also, I finally got the installation CDs for a program I need to analyze the data. So hopefully, I won't be needing to analyze everything in Matlab. Matlab is really convenient for data in matrices, but it's a bit tedious and annoying to put the data into the correct format and laying it out as graphs or other such things. The program I will be using is called Labview. I'm pretty sure I won't need to learn another programming language, which is a bit nice. So towards the end of August, I'll be analyzing data while running experiments. So I'll be SUPER busy. Can't wait... seriously.
Also, I'm very happy to say that so far, I haven't broken anything despite the fact that I am constantly rushing around trying to get the timing of my experiment perfect. The problem is that timing the growth of E. coli is hard since they are living organisms and grow at slightly different rates (even if they part of the same colony and strain).
Can't wait to finish! I'll try to keep you, the general public, updated on my most current activities, but it might be hard since I literally will be working 9.5 hours a day with only a 30 minute break for lunch. :( I like breaks.
Peace~
-PK
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