Week+November+28

__November 28th__ Over the weekend, the shipment of CAFG kits to be taken to area high schools came in. Today, we nanodropped the template DNA and the vector. The vector was of poor quality but the DNA was okay. Then, I took the DNA and did PCR with the kit in order to test to see if it would work for the students as it is supposed to. I did six different PCR's with different concentrations of the Taq polymerase that was sent with the kit. Concentrations of Taq used: 1:1, 1:2, 1:4, 1:8, 1:16, 1:32 We were testing to see what concentration of taq will give us solid results with the least amount of taq. On Wednesday, I will run a gel and photograph it to see it the PCR worked properly.

__November 30th__ Today, I ran the gel of the PCRs from Monday and photographed it. (This was the first time a ran a gel completely by myself) The photographed showed that none of the PCR's worked. But we do know that there is DNA and that the ‍primers were good. This means that the reagent that did not work is most likely the Taq that we were sent. Therefore, today, I did 4 new PCR's: 1. Peyer taq, Peyer DNA 2. Peyer taq, our DNA 3. Our taq, Peyer DNA 4. Our taq, our DNA ‍ On Monday, we will run a gel and photograph the PCR products to compare them to see if it was the taq that was faulty.