Not everyday is sunday u know.....

19/6/07 - Day of the busted PCR. I forgot what happened here. I just remember that its one of the worst FYP days =D Results for the 3 negatives from yesterday saw greater contamination. Just to be safe we threw a couple of reagents away and set up an unofficial protocol. Then someone (me i think) did the PCR. From what i recall the negative came out nicely :P 4 plus hours of waiting for this...and we spent 2 weeks of holiday stalled here.... hai

20/6/07 - WED. One member gone to Genting and the other on family duty :P One went at 8 thinking everyone would be there at 8, and the last one got a fine scolding for oversleeping and coming in late because of "commitments" =D 2 members, and one fine PCR.. A method blank was used against a negative, so that we can easily determine contamination source. Also, another duplicate set was run WITHOUT the RT step, so as to see if the contaminant was RNA in nature or DNA in nature. During the 3 hours of waiting time we did our "unofficial-joint-collaboration-with-HERV-group" FYP =D
RESULTS: Method blank was truly negative, but the water neg was optimistic again...so nth wrong with the reagents. and RT no RT gave RNA contamination. so once again another unofficial protocol on how to do PCR(which is basically to zap on sight) =D

21/6/07 - THUR One member gone to Genting and the other on CCA duty. One went at 8 thinking everyone would be there at 8, the last one didnt know it was 8am until his phone rang =D sheesh...by the time the last one reached SP MasterMix was prepared and PCR was almost ready to enter that 9800 machine. TODAYS OBJECTIVE: to test if our unofficial protocol can be promoted to THE protocol. Then we hiked to FC6 to see how wonderful it looks like when its closed -_-" Lunch turned out to be IMM...
THURS is super extremely sian, given that u are the only group left AND there is no HERV to play CS with. HOWEVER.....
Gel result: Perfect. OBJECTIVE FOR FRIDAY: u may now play with your new extraction kit.

22/6/07 - FRI One member gone to Genting and the other on CCA duty. One went at 830 even though it was supposed to be 930 and the last one went at 10 because he slept at 4 =D We realised our extraction protocol missing..hmmm... either the catladies or darren took it...after a "quick" download, we got underway with MasterMix and Extraction. Extraction courtesy of Mr Chua took a painful and hungry 1hr plus. AND we "gg-ed" at step 6-7...oh well...Bohan looked so sian i would be only logical for me to take over. By the time i got everything ready again 3 people and 4 stomachs were growling; therefore we "extended" step 4's incubation time from 10 mins to 40mins (lunch rightt)=D HERV pp were staying back for no apparent reason; but we all know why =D
Therefore, 2 ATCCs and 7 samples extracted, and joined by another 2 negs (one water and one blank)
As im typing this there are 11 samples in Dover chilling out(yesh literally). Who knows what will come on monday....

aww...no more?

" Coming from behind is an all new thrill " (something like that anyway) ~ Fuji

18/6/07 - Our objectives from the previous time : to see whether negative water is contaminated, and also to see if Darren's phage is really an F+.

WHAT WE GOT: 7 bands. In one straight line. According to reliable sources somatic is NOT supposed to amplify by MS primer. But it amplified. This is therefore our BIG problem. Our small problem? Our ever optimistic negative.

SMALL PROBLEM: 2 negatives were run. One with water and one with nothing. Blanko. Nil. Love. Zero. But both negs came out stronger than any of our pos's, therefore....reagents suspected. We'll try to bail them out with 3 absolute negatives run in the aftnn. Results for tmr =D We'll act as accordingly =D

First Post! =D

i thought it would be a good idea to start this =D

15/06/07 - Went to the lab at 8. Darren was alrdy there (surprise surprise :P) and we got our PCR stuffs ready. TODAY'S AIM: to produce a perfect PCR. Our previous flops were either a positive negative (o.O), or poor sample bands (30 cycles nya), or no bands at all(heat extraction) and some were becoz we tested other primers (GA for type II, SP for type IV). For the records and our log book, both were negative.

So... 7 samples, one F+ and one somatic. and our ever optimistic negative. Darren did the PCR yesterday; my jobs were to get all the stuff and to kaypoh the HERV and veggies group. The veggies grp came for one hour nya, but they do it everyday =D so we're not the only fierce ones =D

OUR RESULTS (after a 60 min gel) : The somatic fella was amplifying like the F+ fella and the F+ fella decided to amplify like a somatic......F+ is supposed to be at 204 kbp and somatic is less... our results were showing something different. FURTHERMORE.... our negative decided to be optimistic today and therefore giving us a very nice band...After getting some SOS, it was concluded that we MAY have mixed up F+ with somatic during our first extraction. Therefore, we extracted our F+ again. and we gave the gel another 30 mins to run.For fun.

OUR RESULTS (after a for fun 90 min gel) : Somehow the F+ and somatic swopped lanes in extra time! What the beep =D so everything turned out ok in extra-time. except for our "negative". but we continued to extract the F+ anyway. come monday, it will be Darren's Pos VS AhDriel's Pos, and one somatic pos, and Water negative pos VS nothing negative pos. OBJECTIVE: to see whether Darrens Pos is really a F+ and not a somatic, and to see whether the water used in negative is contaminated =D

Gunning for Best Project? =D