the idea was to use my mtdna → put it in another organism → see how it affects the organism / how it mutates over time.
i met with ellen d. jorgensen at the biotech-without-borders lab, and we made up a plan.
tenni helped me see e. coli. bacteria under a light-microscope. i also broke some of their cover slides while trying to rush through the procedure; reminder to slow down.
i then wrote an email to professors who had access to a microscope. email:
dear prof. x,
my name is arjun, and i’m a graduate-student at nyu in the interactive-telecommunications-programme (itp). i’ve been working on a small project for dr. heather-dewey-hagborg’s class — bioart-as-biopolitics — with dr. ellen d. jorgensen.
the idea is to take my mtdna sequence, couple it with a gfp, add it to e. coli. cells using plasmids, and see what changes it does to the bacteria. the microscope dr. ellen has at biotech-wthout-borders can only go up to 40x, and has no imaging options (unless i make a camera-mount for that microscope).
i was wondering if you could please help us with access to a microscope that goes beyond 40x and has imaging capabilities, so that i can record a film of the e. coli. cells over time. we’ll have all the samples ready, and just need access to the microscope. any time between next-to-next week and the end of the month would work.
best, arjun.
i heard back from a few places.
day 2 at the lab:
ellen d. jorgensen recommended that i get started with converting the circular pet-283a into a linear strand, to be able to add my dna to it later.
pet-28a is an expression vector:
the procedure:
- 28ul circular dna plasmid (pet-28a)
- 5ul cut-smart (this cuts it)
- 2ul enzyme (to tell it where to cut it)
- 15ul water (to make it to 50ul — i quite don’t know why)
we then wanted to check the concentration of the dna. so, we performed gel electrophoresis:
sliced the bands out:
then purified it with a kit.
later, i’ll do a process called ligation.
made a presentation to explain what i’m doing in class. slides are here: https://arjunmakesthings.github.io/presentations/slides/260424_bioart-final.html#1
i’m happy with how clearly i articulated things there.