Update: CRISPR Was Successful

This morning started off with extremely exciting news for everyone in our class – our CRISPR lab yesterday was extremely successful! We had been worried yesterday, since Dr. Fineschi told us yesterday that CRISP did not work for the Session I class, and they saw no growth on the antibiotics plates. Dr. Fineschi theorized that either their CRISPR did not work – the antibiotic resistance was never inserted into the genome, and therefore, the E. coli were susceptible to succumbing to the antibiotics – or the bacteria were already killed in the procedure prior to CRISPR.

However, our class successfully performed CRISPR to introduce a mutation that coded antibiotic resistance, we were able to see E. coli growth on the antibiotics-coated plates. Out of all the groups in our class, my group had the most growth on both of our plates. Yesterday, we did serial dilutions to filter out bacteria to countable levels. When we counted bacteria plated from those dilutions today, most group got within the tens or the twenties for their colony counts for each of their 10^-7 and 10^-8 plates, but Elaine and I got 41 and 69 colonies, way above the class average. Dr. Fineschi said it was very interesting, as all of our E. coli should have been subjected to the same CRISPR mutation, but for some reason, our mutants were very strong.

 Other people only had twenty or below colonies, but our mutants grew like crazy!!!

After everyone was done examine their plates, it was time to clear our lab station, as we won’t be doing any more labs after today. We returned the boxes of pipet tips, the racks for micro-tubes, our PBS solution, and threw out the mat we had working on for the past two and a half weeks. The stations seemed tragically empty once we were done, bare of everything except the computers now. I couldn’t help but feel a little sad at the sight of our barren workspace, a stark and clear reminder of the little time we have left in this course.

Afterwards, we stayed in the lab room to work on the computer on our HIV evolution assignment. It was extremely interesting, being able to study the DNA sequences of actual HIV virus from real patients. It was also cool to see differences of the changes and mutation in HIV strains between progressors and nonprogessor, or people who succumb to the disease over time and people who can keep the disease at bay, like the elite controllers I mentioned yesterday. I loved the activity, and Elaine and I finished answering the questions in no time.

Our tragically empty lab station; I took so many picture of it during these past few weeks, I'm going to miss it a lot

Once we finished with the HIV evolution assignment questions, we were free to work on our research project for a little bit before we left for lunch. After we had lunch, we went back to the classroom to have a brief lecture on the routes of disease control first, before we headed back to lab to work on another activity on the computer. This activity dealt with a fictional outbreak in a rural Brazilian village (don’t ask me why so specific; I’m just repeating what the game said), and we were part of the CDC tasked with containing this mysterious outspread using our knowledge and deciding which is the best method. It was not hard, but like the HIV evolution activity, it was extremely fun and enjoyable. (We named this mysterious disease bubalus plague, with bubalus meaning “buffalo” in Latin, since the disease originated from buffalos.)

We were presented with the choice to stay longer in the lab to work on our project or to leave for the day and work somewhere else once we had finished the infectious outbreak activity. Most people chose to go; a group of them went to Target to buy poster and construction paper, so I stayed behind and continued navigating my way through a really complex scientific paper.

I left the lab room around 3:45 PM to go work in my dorm room for a change of scenery. I continued working until around 6:00 PM, which was when I went to the gym for 30 minutes before grabbing dinner with Karla afterwards.

I'm getting so sentimental already that I think I will miss the cafeteria. Food was so-so, but the staff is so nice. 

Tomorrow we will watching the movie Contagion for class in the morning. I promise that in these last two days, I will do my best to make the most of and treasure the increasingly limited time I have left with all the wonderful friends and people I have met on this journey.