Day 3 thoughts.  Phagefinders. 

Planned:  To count our # of plaques that resulted from the plating of BXZ1 and D29 for high titer; to isolate new phage; to introduce drjreid.com and Phagefinders online.   

Goals: 

We also need:  to order lab notebooks (3 ring), hole-punch,

Did:  Our original plating of .  Our senior research fellow, Michelle, spoke with the students about her research and phage research for about an hour.  We started an additional smegmatis sample.  We noted that phage D29 formed clear, large plaques (giving us 2 lacey plates at 10-4 and 10-5) and BXZ1 formed smaller plaques...as a consequence, we will be able to harvest D29 for high titer tomorrow and will replate the BXZ1 phage at a less dilute concentration.  We plated 8 phage isolate samples, undiluted, for new virus. 

Today's materials:    1) An alchohol thermometer for the heating block, set to 37 C.  2) A variety of smaller items today, including additional waste-trash bins for biological trash and a recycling bin (small places to put our pipette tips and to separate the used test tubes), and parafilm since we chose to invert our soil/ phage buffer samples for suspension.  3) An abundance of styrofoam racks for students to hold their test tubes in and a key so that materials could be locked away in this room.  4) new/more filter tips.  Need-stapler, office supplies. 

Pointers: 2063 Falcon snap-cap 5 mL tubes could be used instead of glass pipettes, if glass pipettware or an autoclave is not available.  Teaching of dilutions could also be emphasized using bromophenol blue or any soluble dye and flicking so that the dye is suspended and the dispersion of the liquid is evident.  It is important that students track the samples that they are working with as their own, and be able to identify  including the

I have concern about having contaminated our smegmatis with virus.  Therefore, pick another colony from a plate and grow several smegmatis cultures.  How could other labs culture smegmatis since it requires the agitation?  We plated control plates of smegmatis without any virust to determine if we were contaminating our samples, so far, no contamination. 

We made sure that our workspace was clear by having the education department remove chairs from the room.  Students also made the mistake of not separating the metal test tube caps

It is a good idea to have planned questions and readings available for the students to use during their down-time.  I used chapter 5 of Microbial Genetics, (David Freifelder, 1987 Jones and Bartlett, Boston, ISBN 0-86720-076-6, 601 p., chapter title: Bacteriophages, p. 89-111.) as a talking point as the chapter is on a collegate level yet places the major points in a very easy to understand manner.  Students were able to discuss and ask questions about phage biology as a result of this chapter.  

Demi had a phage today that she thought was no longer viable.  In order to test, the virus was spot diluted to test. 

Today, I introduced students to the concept of them writing a unique paragraph each week.  Also, when Michelle visited us (see above), it was a good strategey to request that the students ask Michelle about her research in an informal manner...they asked really good and quite sophisticated questions.  [Mthd-->ppr]