Labwork I

This past summer, I worked in the lab of Dr. Wiener-Kronish in the Department of Anesthesia. Her particular interest is in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a gram-negative opportunistic bacterium that infects immunocompromised, cystic fibrosis, and burn patients. It's also a very important nosocomial (hospital-acquired) bug. My specific project was to create genetic constructs in Pseudomonas to investigate reciprocally regulated genes. I wanted more training in basic molecular biology techniques such as restriction enzymes, plasmid transformation, and cell culture. In particular, I cloned a few genes, attempting to engineer specific plasmids. It was unfortunately frustrating in that the project was not well prepared for me and so I had to work through a lot of problems that I didn't anticipate. I wasn't able to get significant results, so I'm still working on the project despite the difficulty of continuing research into the school year.