Me and My Lab
Hello, my name is Christian Johnson. I just started the Howard Hughes Precollege Program in the Biological Sciences on Monday (as did everyone else). In this blog post I will try to give a description of myself and my research lab.
I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and I attend the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, North Carolina. I previously attended Chapel Hill High School in (you guessed it!) Chapel Hill. I run cross country and track, and play Ultimate (Frisbee) as well. However, I am also very interested in all aspects of science, hence my enrollment in the Howard Hughes program. I am a member of my school's Science Bowl team, which is a lot of fun.
My lab is headed by Dr. William Parker, and is located on the 4th floor of the Medical Science Research Building. Everyone here is very nice and willing to help me with my research tasks. For my project this summer, I will be investigating how proteins in milk can cause IgA molecules to bind to each other, and thus help create biofilms in the gut. These biofilms are very important, because they help prevent disease and help to make essential vitamins. So far this week, I have learned how to make plates of agar, how to plate bacteria without disturbing their colonialization, and how to count bacteria. I also learned the proper way to use the tissue culture room and the autoclave.
This is my lab bench.
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This is the refrigerator.
This is the storage room. Note the large container of liquid nitrogen.
