Final Preparations

I cannot believe we are heading into week ten! The final senior project presentations have been scheduled for Saturday, May 6. Mine is at 12:00 p.m. in the BASIS Phoenix gym, and I would love for anyone interested to attend.

I plan to conduct two more surveys this week: the one for classical music and the one for pop music. I hope everyone enjoys Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and 24K Magic.

In the lab I have been learning a different technique: the Western Blot. It is much trickier than the immuno. It's purpose is to visualize certain target proteins that have been separated by means of gel electrophoresis (separating particles based on their size and charge). To break it down simply (I hope), the first step is to perform the gel electrophoresis. In this step, the liquid samples-- in this case brain tissue samples-- are "loaded" into the wells using a pipette. They are often dyed a dark color so they can be seen. Then, using electricity, the different sized particle fragments separate out through the gel, where smaller fragments travel further.

Then the proteins that ran in the gel must be transferred to a membrane. To do this, you must prepare a stack as shown below and then run electricity through it.

Lastly, you do the antibody staining, much like an immuno, to visualize your target proteins. Here is what a final Western Blot might look like. This one used chemiluminescence and was visualized using fluorescence, where the protein of interest was tagged with a molecule that fluoresces under a certain light.

Thanks!