Multitasking Feels Good
I am doing well at the moment. Today I managed to do three things at once, without screwing any one up (although the timing for some was suboptimal): the second day of a TEM prep, a gel purification and a cloning reaction, and culture maintenance. I had a late start, and stayed late, and got a lot done.
I have been trying to sequence a somewhat refractory gene lately, without success. Yesterday, my advisor said that the most likely problem was in fact the initial amplification, and not (as I kept thinking) the cloning. The remedy for that is to use different primers, which I had understood meant getting less of the gene. The exciting news is that I went through my primers before I left the lab today, and discovered that I have a considerably better one than I had been using! Somehow I had forgotten to notate it in my alignment, and it was only because I wanted to find out for certain how large my gene products should be that I found this one. It is already ordered and sitting in the refrigerator, and I will use it tomorrow. I am so excited! Even if the current, smaller sequence works out, I can still try this one, which will give better results if it works at all.
Productivity makes me happy.
I have been trying to sequence a somewhat refractory gene lately, without success. Yesterday, my advisor said that the most likely problem was in fact the initial amplification, and not (as I kept thinking) the cloning. The remedy for that is to use different primers, which I had understood meant getting less of the gene. The exciting news is that I went through my primers before I left the lab today, and discovered that I have a considerably better one than I had been using! Somehow I had forgotten to notate it in my alignment, and it was only because I wanted to find out for certain how large my gene products should be that I found this one. It is already ordered and sitting in the refrigerator, and I will use it tomorrow. I am so excited! Even if the current, smaller sequence works out, I can still try this one, which will give better results if it works at all.
Productivity makes me happy.