Possible Work I do in the Lab at the CHG
My lab is located on the third floor of the building with the CHG, (I think the building is actually called the MSRB, however I'm not entirely sure.) My days start off in the Biological Sciences building with the morning meeting and various, engaging lectures.
Afterwards I head off with Helen to the lab.
Thus far my daily activities alternate. One day is usually spent running SNPs and making multiple Taqman plates. One SNP takes 3 plates for my study. My personal record is six SNPs a day, a number which I am proud of having. This takes up most of the day. I do all this work at the work bench, and am constantly having to run up to the fourth floor, (only I'm not given access to the stairs so I make do with the back elevator). On the fourth floor reside the PCR blocks, which is where the plates go to heat them up so that the PCR reaction can occur. A typical reaction of 50 cycles, will take about 2 hours, luckily I can fill up the blocks before I leave and go home while the blocks work their magic.
Usually the next day I spend at a computer, either at my desk or at the scanner. The scanner takes the bar code and matches it with the plate and then scans the aftermath of the reaction. After this is done, which takes about four minutes a plate, I go to my computer at my desk. At my desk I open up SDS and add detectors and markers to the program, so that it can read the data. The data is brought up in a convienent graph, which I read and make sure that all the alleles are where they are supposed to be. Then I save the data, and submit it to be interpreted at a later date.
These days usually alternate, or combine, or I do something totally different such as make Taqman plates on the Biomek. This is a very, very long process, and can be pretty boring too. But it must be done.
I generally like my work, I like filling the Taqman plates more than working on the computer. Though mostly I am gratefull for the variety, and that it changes day to day.
My schedule will change again soon. As I wrap up the SNP seqencing, I will be moving on to statistics and interpretation! And then finalizing my poster and data.
