Let's Drink a Gallon of Penicillin And See What Happens

Today, I found out the answer to my question about pigs and “melting pots” in the morning. It turned out the answer was much less dramatic and more scientific than I expected: influenza viruses require sialic acid. Most influenza originates from birds, who have a different sialic acid than humans. That alone should have prevent viruses from jumping between species – and therefore, end of the story.

However, as it turns out, pigs are a rare oddity, having both types of sialic acid, allowing for strains to mix together inside them; thus, pigs become the “melting pots” for the creation of recombinant viruses, which are more deadly than regular influenza viruses, since they are completely new.

We continued to talk about influenza viruses throughout the morning lecture. We broached the development of a universal flu vaccine, which is still a work in progress, but it was worth talking about because it could become something tangible in the near future. All of this information is new to me, and it is so very interesting.

The yellow bands are the DNA we amplified.

Later, we did gel electrophoresis in the laboratory as well (it was a busy morning). I had actually performed gel electrophoresis several times before in school, but it was my first time performing it with actual DNA. The procedures were the same as the ones I was used to, but the equipment was slightly different, and gel electrophoresis never gets old no matter how many times you do it. Even to somebody who doesn’t know a thing about science, the results of gel electrophoresis are still so cool to look at.  

In the afternoon, after lunch, we had a lecture on the central dogma of biology, which is the process of transcription and translation. Again, it was something I had learned back at my high school, but it was interesting because I had thought that my biomedical science teacher made up the “dogma of biology” thing to make it sound cool and didn’t realize there was something actually called the central dogma of biology. I will have to tell him when I get back and apologize.

Some formulas for the lab

Then, we had an hour in the lab working on counting growth on our rifampicin plates and our patching experiments. I don’t know why, but lab work always gives me energy. I feel wide awake just by counting the number of colonies visible on the petri dish – and no, that was not even sarcasm. I just absolutely love being in the lab! Everyone recorded their data on the board, and our time in the lab was over too soon, in my opinion.  

Back in the classroom again, we resumed lecture, and Dr. Fineschi asked us what we learned from our patching experiments. We were discussing once more the importance of taking antibiotics properly to lessen chances of bacteria developing resistance when Clyde, a fellow classmate, proposed an interesting thought: “What if we just drank a gallon of penicillin?”

Unfortunately, according to Dr. Fineschi, not only would that not work, as some bacteria are probably so resistant they could withstand the gallon of penicillin, doing so would also destroy the microbiome that is in our bodies naturally, so that would not be a viable option.

For the rest of class, we learned about the immune system and all the different types of immune responses, which will set us up nicely for our next topic tomorrow, HIV.

After class, I returned to my dorm and worked on homework. A little while later, Michelle came in, and she gave me a really cute bear keychain for being a good roommate to her! It was so very sweet of her; Michelle is awesome.

Michelle holding the bear keychain

I also resumed my daily trips to the gym later in the afternoon (I didn’t go yesterday since I went to the Japanese garden), and this time, Karla went with me. I stayed on the treadmill the whole time again. Karla started off on the treadmill with me for about 15 minutes, but then she went on the elliptical. We both worked out for 40 minutes and felt very good about it afterwards. Karla said she was happy she decided to come with me and that she would love to go with me more often, which in turn made me happy because I got myself a gym buddy!

Inside Ratner Athletics Center

After dinner, I finally went down to the basement to do my laundry, which I have been procrastinating to do for at least three days. It felt good to finally get it over with, though I did worry slightly that I put too big of a load into the washer. Luckily, after 35 minutes, I took my clothes out of the washers and they seemed pretty fine, although my clothes didn’t all dry completely in the dryer, which was not a big deal.

Tomorrow we will be going to the PCR facilities first thing in the morning; I hope it will be an extremely worthwhile and interesting experience.