students write-up

Here is two of my students's reflection of transformation lab.

Lea C Murray This past week my class just completed a cell transformation lab. At first it was quite intimidating to know that we, a class of sophomores, were going to do a college level lab. Then after we were separated into groups and my group and I started to divide the work, I started to think that it was actually do able. Then when we actually started to do the lab, I really had fun. I have learned quite a few things from this lab, not to mention enjoy it. The first thing that I learned is that something doesn’t have to be seen for it to be there. When my group first took the bacteria colonies we didn’t even see if we got them. We knew we got some on our sterile loop at the end of the experiment when the E. coli grew. The same thing goes for when I had to dip the sterile loop into the plasmid solution. I thought that I would actually see some type of thick liquid and when I was worried that I didn’t get any on the loop, the teacher had to tell me that it was actually on there. I was extremely relieved when after the experiment, our group had the transferred bacteria in its appropriate dish. Another thing I learned is that when you are doing a lab with bacteria, everything must be sterile or your experiment won’t work properly. One of the groups in the lab contaminated their bacteria. At the end of the experiment they had a strange mountain like growth where their bacteria should be. The most important thing I learned though was the whole process of cell transformation. When I read it in the text book, I had to go back and read it three more times until I understood what the chapter was talking about. When my group and I did the project, the procedures were very close to what the book itself described. After we finished the lab and did it correctly, it cemented everything I knew from before with compete understanding. This was one of the things that I liked about the lab as well. What the book’s example was something a lot more complex than just getting some E. coli bacteria to glow under a UV light. It was a little bit shocking that the same steps were applied to both different cell transformations. It was pretty cool when I really thought about what we were doing and what that could be implied to. This thought led me to the second thing that I liked about this lab. I really enjoyed what we were doing in the lab. This lab made me want to find out more about genetic engineering. I am now seriously thinking about what a career would be like doing this sort of thing everyday. I only had a few career ideas floating through my head, and now a genetic engineer was added to the list. That week when we were doing the lab was pretty cool. I enjoyed it and I actually did get, and retain, some knowledge from the lab. I finally understood why you needed to keep the bacteria cold and why the short heat bath was necessary to ensure that the plasmids would be absorbed into the bacteria. I also wasn’t dragging my feet through the entire lab and wishing for it to end either. I am very glad that my class and I had gotten the opportunity to do this lab. It was well worth everything that we had to do.



Victor Arce
Transformation of E. Coli Cell
The purpose of this lab was to observe and learn how a cell is transformed using a plasmid. The experiment was done by inserting a recombinant plasmid that contained the pGlo gene into the E. coli cell. To accomplish this Micro Test Tubes, Pipettes, E. coli cells, Ice, warm water, aqueous calcium chloride, sterile loops, and Petri dishes were used. In order to transform the cells you must place the CaCl2 (aq) the two micro test tubes. Then place a small E. coli colony into the test tubes. Place the test tubes in the ice for about one minute. Then take the recombinant DNA and place it in the micro test tube. Next you heat shock the cells so that they accept the recombinant DNA and transform. Through this lab I learned many interesting information about micro biology. I learned how a cell is transformed and why a plasmid is used. The plasmid is used to transform the cell because it is a simpler structure than a chromosome. This way it has less of a chance of an error occurring with the DNA.