Duke University | Howard Hughes Undergraduate Program

Christina Arnaout is a second year graduate student at Duke University. Working in Hudson Hall means that she’s doing something with Civil and Environmental Engineering, which is absolutely right! Under Dr. Claudia Gunsch, Christina is working on her dissertation, which is currently titled as: “Growth Inhibition of Diverse Wastewater Microbial Communities and the presence of Silver Resistance Genes.” Her main objective is to study if silver nanoparticles have any negative effects on wastewater treatment systems by altering the growth of vital microbial communities that cleanse the water. She hypothesizes that due to the presence of nanosilver particles in our waste water, which are there due to nanosilver products, the silver kills all the bacteria, including the ‘beneficial’ microorganisms that are used to clean the waste water. This in result creates water pollution!

A wastewater treatment plant. Christina's research will help prevent water pollution due to nanosilver particles. 

My project is a tiny segment of Christina’s GIGANTIC research. It will be conducted at a much smaller scale (Petri dish….). The objective of my study is to characterize if nanosilver consumer products are truly antimicrobial. To do this, I am to characterize the antibacterial properties of nanosilver consumer products. This will be done by completing a zone of growth inhibition test on pure culture LB and R2A agar plates which has been streaked with E.coli. Characterizing the effects of nanosilver on microbial communities will clarify the need for additional treatment of wastewater pollute with nanosilver. If you were wondernig, the nanosilver is extracted by leaching the particles out. For example, I had to collect a small sample of nanosilver teddy bear and put it into a bottle of nanopure water. By placing this bottle onto a shaker table for 24 hours, I expect to find nanosilver particles in the water. 

A zone of inhibition of bacterial growth. This is what I will be seeing when I finish conducting my experiment. 

I’m so glad that my project will be useful to the human society, that is through Christina. She will analyze my data and from it, learn how E.coli reacts with the various nanosilver products I will be experimenting with. Brook, my lab partner, will be doing the same experiment, except, he will be streaking his agars with Bacillus, a different type of bacteria. Since there are many different microbial communities in waste water, it is essential to conduct experiments with various types of bacteria.

 Hello everybody…

Guess what, I have a new buddy in my lab!

NEW BUDDY’S PROFILE
Name: Brook Teffera
School: Rising Junior at Jordan High School
Hobby: Soccer and nothing really else…..
Program he’s working with: Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT)
What he wants to get out of the program: To gain experience as a biomedical engineer.
Other summer plans: Finish his AP project.

Top: Brook Teffera from Jordan High School. Bottom: Kauro Ikuma, a third year graduate student also working in Dr.Gunsch's lab. 

He’s not the only one though. Kauro Ikuma, a third year graduate student who left for Sweden two weeks ago to attend a conference, just got back! Christina told me that Kauro is very knowledgeable and that I will learn lots from her. I’m so excited!! Kauro is an international student at Duke. She grew up in Japan, but for college, came to the U.S and attended Virginia Tech. for her B.S and Masters. Being a major overachiever, she earned two degrees in her undergraduate years in Biology and Biochemistry and a minor in Chemistry. When it came time for her Masters, she studied Environmental Engineering. When I asked Kauro why she worked so hard during her college life, all Kauro said was that she wanted to go to medical school. But due to the high tuition costs, she allowed herself to wander a different direction and coincidentally fell in love with Environmental Science when she took Environmental Microbiology. Starting her third year at Duke, Kauro’s dissertation will be something along the lines of “The Horizontal gene transfer of the Tol plasmid: Evaluating conjugation events that result in functional phenotypes.” Fancy name, huh? I’ve looked at dissertation names and had to wonder, who comes up with these long and fancy titles? Anyways, back to Kauro, she presumes that the title of her dissertation will change and is hoping to one day become a Professor.

Other than my two new lab partners, this week has been fairly slow. Everyday when I came into the lab, I headed to the incubator (yes… the stinky incubator) and took out my inoculated LB broth with E.coli. This media, that has stayed overnight, is very opaque. The cloudiness lets me know that the E.coli has reached its threshold, its maximum growth. So before the bugs (that’s what my lab calls the bacteria) die, I need to take out 1ml of it and transfer it into a new LB broth so it can grow in the media until it reaches it maximum growth the next day. And this I continue over and over and over again.. until I no longer have to work with E.Coli.

A spectrophotometer that takes O.D measurements. Me holding up a cubic. 

On Thursday, I took Optical Density (O.D) measurements of my newly inoculated LB broth with E.coli so I could see for myself the growth curve of an E.coli colony. Every thirty minutes, from the time I inoculated the media, I would take the O.D measurements from the machine. By the way, the O.D machine measures the amount of light that can penetrate the solution that is put into a little cubic, which goes into the machine to be measured. After collecting 6 hours worth of O.D measurements, I went home that night and made a scatter graph. From studying it, I learned the exponential growth cycle of E.Coli! 

From looking at the flasks, you can tell which one is 24 hours old or newly inoculated. Left is old while the right is new LB broth. 

Next week, Brooke and I are going to start on our leaches. I know I said I would do it earlier on when I first amputated the teddy bear, but because the necessary materials, that were ordered, arrived late, the leaching process had to be rescheduled to next week. Just to kill time, I cut the other leg of the poor doll for fresh samples.

The teddy bear has lost both arms and legs. 

Well so far, the Howard Hughes Program has been amazing. Unlike school, which seems to go on and on, HH is going way too fast. I just want to command time to go slower! Ridiculous amount of pipetting, tedious measurements on the scale, or even just standing in the lab makes me feel this warm glow within me. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but just being in a lab makes me feel really good. Maybe it’s that cool breeze with a hint of new paint scent. However, I do know for sure what my favorite reason of being in the lab is: I always get to learn something new! Working in the lab, I’m continuously pushed to think. Studies show that high school students get dumb over the summer due to the lack of thinking. I absolutely agree to this from prior experience, but, I know this summer everything is different!

 On Tuesday 23rd of June, I got to go out to lunch with my mentor, Dr. Claudia Gunsch, and graduate student, Christina Arnaout. At first, I was so nervous to know that I was going to be eating with a PROFESSOR, but this anxiety was soon to be relieved on our ten minute walk to the restaurant. While we were all enjoying our tasty Asian fusion dishes from Chai’s, we conversed in a very informal and amiable way. As I asked her questions and she answered them back, I realized that the Professor was a very friendly and a positive person and that I was lucky to have her as my mentor. Before I knew it, an hour had gone by and I had a clearer understanding of whom and what kind of person Professor Gunsch was.

Doctor Claudia Gunsch pipetting and preparing her gel electrophesis. 

Dr. Claudia Gunsch is currently an Assistant Professor at Duke University, teaching Environmental Microbiology during the school year. Fascinatingly, Dr.Gunsch came to the U.S for college after living in France all her life. Growing up there, she was able to come to the America with a broad cultural spectrum. At Purdue University, she earned her B.S in Civil Engineering in 1998 and then went to Clemson University for her Masters in 2000. Four years later, she earned her Ph.D in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, writing her dissertation on “Linking Gene Expression to Performance in a Fungal Biofilter Treating Ethylbenzene.”

Dr. Gunsch with a student holding up flasks of liquids. 

The next day, I went to her office to interview her. Having had lunch with her, it was easier to ask her the questions I had prepared:

Me: What was your favorite class in high school?

Dr. Gunsch: My favorite class…I really liked all of the sciences, but I didn’t really like Physics as much. But I liked Biology, Chemisty, and Math, but Math probably being my favorite.

Me: Was there a specific time when you knew that you wanted to pursue a career in Engineering?

Dr.Gunsch: First I realized I wanted to do something in Science and from there I kind of migrated into the Engineering. I liked how it [engineering] was logical but you were also trying to solve a problem as apposed to having a problem without a tangible result at the end.

Me: So is that why you went into Engineering rather than a Science field?

Dr.Gunsch: Yes. Science is not as concrete as of a product. My original idea when I went into Environmental science was that we should use Engineering to be able to be environmentally friendly. I always thought that we necessarily don’t have to change the way we need to use things but the Engineers can change the things that are done. Instead of using less paper, Engineers can increase the amount things being recycled. There shouldn’t be a huge impact on society.

Me: Wow! That’s so cool! (I’m so cliché)

Dr.Gunsch: Ya (chuckle). An interesting thought.

Science is not as concrete as of a product as engineering. 

Me: Was it your first career pathway choice to become a Civil and Environmental Engineer?

Dr.Gunsch: Yes I was always, which is quite unusual. Most of the people in the graduating class, I would have to say, were people who had started in Electrical Engineering or Chemical Engineering who had come over to Civil Engineering. I started off as a Civil Engineering intending to do Environmental Engineering as well.

Me: What is your definition of Civil Engineering?

Dr.Gunsch: Um... Civil Engineering is very broad. For me, it is building; build structures or devices to protect human health. This can be from a structural engineer building a house or building that is safe for people to work or live in. For an Environmental Engineer, this can be building a water plant or new materials that are safe and renewable.

Me: I asked this yesterday, but your reason to go to Purdue University was because they had a wide range of classes?

Dr.Gunsch: Ya, I liked Purdue in ways that it was a wide institution and one thing people are unsure, especially when you are in high school, is what to major. It is very common for students to change their field from what they intentionally intended to do. At a large school, I knew I could easily transfer without packing up and going to another University.

Dr.Gunsch attended Purdue University for her B.S in Civil Engineering. 

Me: When you were in college, was your purpose of taking this major to one day become a professor?

Dr.Gunsch: I didn’t know that I wanted to become a professor until either my senior year or when I started my masters. But I knew, based off my coop. experience that I did not want to do industry. But in coop., I realized I wanted to do consulting and did a consulting internship right before I started my masters.

Me: What made you want to pursue an environmental career?

Dr.Gunsch: Well I really liked environmental studies but I knew that as an Engineer, we can truly change the way society does thing in a more environmentally friendly way. Especially growing up in Europe gave me a lot more exposure of this kind of a thing unlike in America where it is more consumer oriented. I just knew as an Engineer that I should find ways to preserve the environment.

"...growing up in Europe gave me a lot more expore of [living environmentally friendly]. "

Me: Do you think your perspective in being an Environmental Scientist would have been different if you grew up in America, rather than in France?

Dr.Gunsch: Well I think it would have definitely been different. Living in Europe, there are many things that are engrained in you that are not over here. For example, laundry detergent. Over here, your laundry detergent comes in a plastic container while in France, the detergent comes in this little collapsible plastic bag that is usually concentrated and you pour it into this original plastic bottle so you recycle the plastic bottle. There are lots of things like that because the density of the population is so much higher there than here. Little things like that…. So if that’s the way you grow up doing things, that’s just the way things are. If you buy plastic bottles for 20 years, it’s hard to change that habit unless you are forced into doing so.

Me: Is there anything that shocked you when you came to America?

Dr.Gunsch: Well there is nothing really specific because I went to Canada a lot and so I was already exposed to the American lifestyle. The most shocking thing I have to say though was how you had to drive to go to every place. In Indiana, there is no public transportation. When I first came here for college, I didn’t have a driver’s license and it wasn’t until I started my coop. job for GM that I learned how to drive. Living in the outskirts of Paris, public transportation was never an issue since I could ride on the metro.

Dr.Gunsch grew up riding the metro in France. 

Me: What is the hardest part of being a professor?

Dr.Gunsch: The hard part is definitely getting funding. My ability to get funding affects if the graduate students get paid or not and if their projects can be fully supported. And I think it is a bigger stress for junior faculties than senior faculties just because it hasn’t been that long since we were graduate students ourselves and so we remember well how difficult the life was.

Me: You told me yesterday that you hit a time when you just wanted to give up. When was this again?

Dr.Gunsch: During the doctrine. There definitely is a time when you, whatever type of research project, have all these ideas and nothing works. Getting a Ph.D is all about perseverance. You are going to run into difficult problems unless you are a very lucky person.

Living in perserverance is Dr.Gunsch greatest advise to all students. 

Me: So do you have any advice to someone who is trying to pursue the same career as you?

Dr.Gunsch: Persevere and if there is something you really want to do, do it. And what helped me when I had those low moments was to go out and volunteer for the community. It let me realize that there are people out there that are really having a hard time. I was just struggling with a research project while there were people out there struggling with everyday life. That really really helped. I would help women do their grocery or just chat with them. It helps because you are in a different place.

Me: Was there ever a time in your college life when you felt dumb?

Dr.Gunsch: Well rather than dumb, there were several aspects of Civil Engineering that I felt that I was not good at. I’m really bad with directions; I keep hinting my husband to get me a GPS. Well, there is a class called Surveying where you work with angles and topography. No matter how hard I tried, I fell flat on my face. Another one of those classes would be graphic design. I don’t think I ever felt that I couldn’t do engineering but more that there were areas in Engineering that I wasn’t good at.

"...there were several aspects of Civil Engineering that I was not good at." 

Me: Do you ever feel your job is boring?

Dr.Gunsch: Definitely not. I feel like there is always something new to be learned. This is one great and exciting thing about an academic job. You can really go into any direction you want to go. And so, no, I can say that my job is not boring.

Me: So my final question is: what was the funniest thing that ever happened to you on your job?

Dr.Gunsch: I think you got me.

……I can’t really think of one.

Actually…. I was teaching my Molecular Technology class and so I have all these pre-med students. The day before the exam, one student wrote a whole bunch of things on the board and told me those were all the things that I had taught wrong. And I was just like ‘wow’ and because she was a premed student, she had studied everything in detail. I knew that that student would do well on the exam.

Me: Well thank you so much for your time. Talk to you soon.

Dr. Gunsch: Later~!

On 6.21.09 I took part in a very unfortunate event... I had to amputate the cutest teddy bear ever (*tear tear*) 

Why would I do such a cruel thing? Well, this teddy bear was special! It was one of my nanosilver products so I needed a sample to leachate the silver particles from it. Oh well, It's not my fault it was born as a nanosilver product!
So after the tragic event of cutting off the bear’s right arm, I separated the foam and the skin.

Left: The worst part of amputating the bear was that it kept smiling back at me! So I didn’t forget to bandage the poor bear with silver duck tape. Right: Amputated Teddy bear. 

With these two pieces, I cut 1 by ¾ in. round samples and put them in bottles with 1000ml of nanopure, something I pipetted last friday.

I collected two more samples by cutting the same size piece out of a nanosilver sock and pipetting 1ml of Colloidal Silver.

 At this very moment, these four samples are being mixed thoroughly by a shaker table. I’m so excited to see how much nanosilver has leached out! 

Left: (left to right)1g Colloidal Silver, Nanosilver Sock, Nanoteddybear Foam, Nanoteddybear skin. Right: My four samples. 

A video of this tragic eventa: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=94734367054

Hello everyone! 

I’m Leighanne Oh, a rising junior at Northern High School. For the summer of 2009, I was invited to participate in a very prestigious six-week program called the Howard Hughes Precollege Program in the Biological Sciences, which is held at Duke West Campus. The application process started early in the beginning of the year and in May, I was surprised to open a congratulating letter of my acceptance to the program. Days before the start of Howard Hughes, I found myself constantly asking the same questions: What kind of research will I do? Is this program going to be hard? Am I going to mess up? What will happen if I don’t succeed in a project? I found myself taunted by these questions and the anxiety permitted me to have only a short 5-hour sleep before I had to wake up to go to Duke on the first day. So on the 15th of June, I spent my early morning stumbling around the gigantic Duke Campus; for the hundredth time, scanning the campus map that I had received earlier; power walking from one side of the campus to the other; and finally, with much difficulty due to my disability to comprehend a simple map, I was able to find the Biological Science building. I am so glad that I took part in the HH program. That morning when I entered the meeting room, I knew that I stepped into a different level of Science, which I had never encountered before and I sure was right. The first week of the program was an unbelievable experience and I knew that I have embarked on a journey of excellence.

A little bit about me!

My current address is in Durham and it has been for only about two years. Before that, I lived in Seoul, South Korea. I was born and raised in the Asian city, attending Seoul Foreign British School, so if you’re wondering if my English is all broken up and if it possesses a strong Korean accent, it doesn’t. Living in a metropolitan city has taught me a lot of important skills that I appreciate having now. I can walk and hike forever without getting tired (this is a very crucial skill that has proven itself useful due to fact that I get lost at Duke everyday), sleep in public transportations but never over sleeping to miss the destination stop (I ride the bus to Duke), learn the Korean language, and most importantly, the passion to shop till you drop in the messy clearance sections! Moving from Seoul to Durham was a dramatic change in my life. For me, the most interesting change was that there was SO MUCH GREENERY here in North Carolina! I actually went down on my knees and examined the grass when I first got here to make sure if it was all real. It was just so fascinating. This might sound crazy, but technically speaking, it’s not. In Seoul, you never get to see fields and fields of grass and it’s rare to see even a little patch of grass too! Anyways, I love moving around and hope that my future address will be the WORLD! I want to travel every continent to taste the different cultures and try out the assortment of flavors to knowledge myself. On the trip, I’ll be able to do all the things I love. I’ll have my cello (her name is Baby) to practice, a camera to snapshoot every moment, my swimsuit so I can swim, and most importantly, myself who is very passionate to learn, especially in the field of Science. So reading this, I think you have a basic idea of my personality and character =D 
 

Getting started! 

For the first week, all the Howard Hughes fellows stayed together from 8:30-till noon. Tanya Kossler, Chris Duncan, and Kriti Sharma, who are graduate students at Duke, were our program instructors. They taught us the elementary skills to scientific lab work such has how to pipette, prepare and stain gel for electrophoresis, streak bacteria, and how to conduct a liquid chromatology lab. To learn all these skills was absolutely amazing for me. I had never done biological lab work in my highschool and so, everything we did the first week was new to me. Even though I had learned most of the covered material in my Biology class, I realized my lack of lab experience hurt me. During the time of the course at school, I never fully understood the material. All I would do was memorize facts, learn the big picture, and do well on the tests. Through the HH program, I was enlightened by the extended wealth of knowledge that could be learnt by doing labs! 

 Above: Claire Deahl, one of fifteen Howard Hughes particpant. I got to sit next to her for the whole week during our meetings. Meeting new students in the Triangle Area who have the same interests as me was a renewing experience. 

Topic of Research: Nanosilver products

After lunch each day, I would say my farewells to the other 14 HH students and would go to my research lab, which was in Hudson Hall Engineering Building. I had been assigned to the Civil and Environmental Engineering department to work under Dr. Claudia Gunsch. Did you go ‘yikes’ at that Engineering?

Trust me, I did the same. When I first learned of the department I was assigned to, all that went through my head was math, math formulas, and more maths. However, it was not like that at all when I went. On the first day, I was introduced to Christina Arnaout, a graduate student working with Dr. Gunsch. She was to be my advisor who was going to teach and help me conduct my research. Well it is more like Christina’s research project for her PhD. My research is just a tiny segment of hers. As we walked from the Biological Science building to the Hudson Building on the first day, she gave me a white binder with articles, journals, procedure, and most importantly, a weekly agenda. I was so grateful of her preparation since I knew that this was not a typical procedure that most graduate students did for their high school interns. So the first thing we did when the two of us reached Hudson Hall was to meet with Dr.Gunsch, my head professor. Dr.Gunsch and Christina explained to me in detail what my project was. For the next six weeks, I would be researching about nanosilver products and their negative effects to the ecosystem, in particular, the water system. (I’m so glad that I took AP Environmental Science. Water pollution was my teacher’s favorite and most passion subject. He would talk about it ALL THE TIME! Thank you so much Mr. Joshua Roberts!)

Top left: Hudson Hall Engineering Building   Right: Dr. Claudia Gunsch, the assistant scientist in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department. Bottom left: This is Christina Arnaout, a graduate student working on her PhD under Dr.Claudia Gunsch. I'll be tailing her for the next six weeks. She'll be teaching me everything to comple this project and most importantly, showing me what the life of a scientist is! 

Dr. Gunsch continued to explain to me how in recent years, the use of nanomatierals in the industry has greatly increased. One of their most common uses incorporates antimicrobial silver nanoparticles into several different consumer products, including wound dressings, air filters, washing machines, textiles, and may other products. The use of nanosilver is still developing in the U.S but in many parts of Asia such as in Japan, Taiwan, China, and Korea (woot woot!), nanosilver products are very popular. Despite many of the beneficial aspects of nanosilver products, it is possible that their release into the environment could negatively impact the microbial communities in a variety of ecosystems. Regarding the water system, these nanosilver particles wash off into our water supply and kill both the good and bad bacteria. Killing bacteria can be good, however, what is the impact to our Earth if all the bacteria went extinct? 

So basically, the positive aspect of nanosilver has been published, but the negative long-term effects have not yet been thoroughly studied. Therefore, it is important to determine if these materials have detrimental effects on microbial communities in both natural and engineered systems. With the funding of EPA, the Gunsch lab is conducting research to investigate the long-term effects of nanosilver products to our fragile Earth and if there is clear evidence that nanosilver material is harmful to our environment, the research will help compose a policy for the EPA to order. 

Right: This is the lab I will be working in for the next six weeks. 

After the professional explanation both Dr. Gunsch and Christina gave me, I had a semi-clear understanding of my project. The objectives of this study are to characterize if nanosilver consumer products are truly antimicrobial. Later on, Christina further explained to me that in order to characterize the antibacterial properties of nanosilver consumer products, I will complete a zone of growth inhibition tests on pure culture plates. Zone of growth inhibition test… long and weird word write? I don’t clearly understand it myself yet, however, when the time comes to do the lab, I will! That is the best part of the HH program. I am constantly learning new things! Anyways, characterizing the effects of nanosilver on microbial communities will clarify the need for additional treatment of wastewater polluted with nanosilver.

Left: The ten nanosilver products I will be working with. I will be leachating them by cutting off a little sample of each product. By measuring the amount of nanosilver particles that come out from each product, I will be able to study the effects of the particles. 

By the way, this is Lindsey Dublissa on the left, a senior at Clarkson University. Attending school in NY, she is here at Duke just for the summer as an intern. So the lab is just us three girls... GIRL POWER!

Wasn’t all that just overwhelming and interesting? To your fascination, this was just DAY 1. For the rest of the week, Christina and I followed the agenda and did the following: 

• Learn how to make agar

Agar, a gel substance that helps bacteria grow, was one of the coolest things I have ever made. It was almost like baking a cake, except all the measurements had to be very precise. Precision is the key to success! For the week, I made a total of 75 agar plates, but this was only practice. Christina has told me that by next week, I’ll be making agar plates all the time.

Left: Once all the material is mixed, it is autoclaved. The beaker is then taken out and cooled before it can be poured into plates. 

• Learn to streak bacteria

With a frozen sample of E.Coli K12, I learned how to streak the bacteria on an agar plate. Streaking is difficult in ways that only single colonies with the right small shape and define edges can be used. If E.Coli K12 is streaked too close or far apart from each other, the colonies will not form individually but clump, making them bigger than normal and have blurry edges. These multiple colonies cannot be used since they react differently to single colonies of E.Coli. Once you are done streaking the bacteria, the plate must be parataped (which I’m terrible at!) and incubated. Attention to all! The incubator for E.Coli stinks! What an experience was when I first opened it. The warm air with a very indescribable scent slapped me the moment I opened the incubator. I have to say, I sort of fainted the first few seconds. It just smells terrible and the heat makes it even worse! However, after opening the incubator several times a day, I realized I would just have to get over it. So from now on, whenever I open the door of the incubator, I hold my breath.

Right: The evil incubator! It may just look like the inside of a fridge, but do not be fooled! 

• Learn how to autoclave

With high temperature and pressure, an autoclave sterilizes any item that is put into it. Autoclaving is fun but I think it takes way too long! For a 20 minute autoclave procedure, you need to wait at least another 10 minutes for it to cool and reach 0 pressure before you can open the autoclave machine.

• Learn how to pour plates with aseptic technique

As I realized the first week, lab work is all about being aseptic. You need to wear latex gloves, clean all working areas with ethanol, be careful that all items being used are not contaminated, especially the sterile ones. And this is all for good reason! Pouring plate is all done under a biological hood, which protects the scientist and ventilates the air so that the bacteria in the air do not contaminate the sample being dealt with. Being a clean freak, being aseptic was one of the easiest procedures I had to learn.

Right: All the bacteria that needs to be cooled but not frozen are put into this fridge that is the lab I am working in. The 75 agar plates are in here too! Labeled and dated, the two bags on the top shelf are mine! 

• Read review papers on silver contamination and disk diffusion method

Science really is all about reading, reading, and reading. Everyday during my two-hour commute to Duke, I kill time by reading review papers, journals, or anything I can about nanosilver. I’ve gotten better comprehending these scientific writings, however, the very first journal I read had to be studied for at least 30 minutes before I fully understood it.

• Learn to Inoculate broth media for E.Coli K12

Inoculating means to put something in a media so it can grow, in this case, E.Coli K12. I took out my plate of E.Coli K12 from the incubator (ew…) that I had streaked the day before. After picking out the perfect single colony I could find, I put the bacteria into a LB broth. Then this beaker went into the fridge. By the way, this procedure was done under a hood. So far, all activity with bacteria I did were conducted under the Biological hood. Sometimes, I have difficulties working efficiently under the hood. Why? Because I have short arms! Oh how I wish I could be a little longer!

Right: Me working under a hood. Don't I look like a real scientist? 

• Plan leachate nanosilver process

This is the last thing I did for the week. Leachating is literally leaching out the target particles from a sample. In my case, I want to get the nanosilver out of the 10 products I am to experiment with. I wasn’t able to complete this process, however, I spent my whole time pipetting 100ml of autoclaved nanowater into 10 beakers—one beaker for each sample.

Left: Ten bottles of 100ml autocalved nanowater. 

Out of the ten nanosilver products, I have two that I just think are amazing.

The first item is Colloidal Silver. A nutritious drink, it is recommended to be consumed one table spoon per day. Who thought of drinking nanosilver? Next is a nanosilver sprayed teddy bear. Coated with nanosilver particles, the doll is anibacterial. Being commercialized mainly to babies and young children, the doll allows parents to escape their worries from their children chewing dirty and bacteria covered soft toys. 

 Left: Colloidal silver. Right: Nanosilver Teddy Bear

 Well that was Week one. I don’t think I have ever digested so much biology in a week as I have. The other 14 HH students, advisors, professors, and graduate students have been an amazing part of the start of my 2009 summer and I just can’t wait until next week for another five days of adventure!

-- Leighanne Oh