Today was my first official day in the lab. To be honest, at first I was a the first one to arrive today and there was no clear direction of what exactly I should be doing. I first started looking through the literature to learn a little about hfq and sRNA.
After that, I decided that I needed to warm up my practical lab skills so I followed a protocol that other labmates had done: creating a SBHI solution from hemin and NAD+, serial dilutions of KW20 and culture plating at various levels (ranging from 10^6 to 10 colony forming units). I learned quite a bit about where equipment was located, how to use things such as the centrifuge and (relearning) how to pipette. Tomorrow I'll count cultures and get a better idea of how dilute is too dilute and we'll see if my serial dilutions provide expected results.
Here at the Pasteurellaceae there will be a poster tomorrow or the next day about a study of Hfq. I think they've pulled down the RNAs that Hfq binds to, in H, influenzae (?). But they haven't looked at competence. I'll let you know what I learn.
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