The students have been divided into six groups, each of which is working on one particular aspect of the project.
1) E. coli growth and transformation :- this team will grow E. coli and treat it so that it is able to take-up plasmids (small rings of DNA). They will also use the bacteria to bulk-up DNA samples.
2) S. cerevisiae growth and transformation :- this team will do the same as group 1, but in yeast. They will maintain stocks and prepare samples for other groups.
3) Protein purification and analysis :- students will purify proteins using column chromatography and analyse the products by SDS-PAGE (protein gel electrophoresis).
4) Western blotting :- after transferring proteins form an SDS-PAGE gel onto a nylon membrane, this group will probe the membrane with anti-bodies to identify specific phosphorylation events.
5) DNA purification and analysis :- students will purify plasmid DNA, cut it with restriction enzymes, analyse the results by agarose gels and create new plasmids ready for transformation.
6) Bioinformatics :- the “techies” will search data-bases to find similarities between yeast and humans and determine what might be expected from the experiments – they will direct future experiments.
|
