Author: Faris Ktit

Havent commented on this bad boy in a while. Possibly got some results today havent confirmed it yet but we will see ! Possible BLA gene detection!

Today was just a bit of reading and getting some shizz together. Trying out one more method and now got a new member on team fazza so should be good. You all know Erik. We have found a protocol to extract DNA out of these phages which will be the next step then Amplifying with PCR and analysing them on a gel. This will usually take a whole day to do and is a long process and cant afford to not prepare.

So today I woke up hopeful but to only find a couple of plaques! Really thought this method was the best one also but oh well aye that’s science! At least Im capable of getting a few isolated now the upcoming weeks is going to be involved with extracting DNA out of these phages and analysing them. Data should be appearing in the near future!

Not sure if anybody is interested in this. Not sure if its real science or media exaggeration? take a look for yourselves http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22967727

Alright so got some results today and I think I got around one plaque today :(. This is good in the area of method development. My second attempt has been the most successful with potentially 15 plaques! So obviously I think I have made too many tweeks to my method development at once for the third attempt so now im doing a variation from my second attempt with only one change so hopefully the results this Friday should be promising. Otherwise than that Ive been able to look at a couple papers about the PCR and running the gel section so the method development for that should be interesting and prep for that is being taken place as we speak so hopefully I’ll have some handsome looking data I can share in the near future….

Today for me was really just another preparation day for making plaques! So just making my soft agar, nutrient agar and my broths. Ive also made 25 nutrient broths using the bench autoclave which was pretty cool! And on the sneaky I removed an isolated plaque made last week and placed it in a nutrient broth and incubated it for overnight so maybe I can analyse it tomorrow! If I can. Anyways night.

Right, so some plaques were found! Today or yesterday even which is good news. About time I got some of them bad boys. On Monday or during the week these plaques could be potentially isolated and analysed which is exciting. At the same time I am going to try and produce some plaques from making more plates which allows analysis of many as poss. This could be a good week so Ill update as much as poss.

Today no plaques were found which was pretty disappointing but slight change of the method is to be undergone which will develop a method to produce a good plaque assay. Although no plaques were formed, Its just the beginning of the journey for me and its pretty cool….

Right so today’s been a pretty good day. My Broths were looking pretty good which was a good start. Managed to make some soft agar in tubes which was pretty cool. My nutrient agar was ready and I managed to mix my e.coli broth with it to make my pour plates.After a lovely big mac meal with free cheeseburger I isolated my phages using a centrifuge and a syringe containing 0.22 micron filter. I then mixed these with the soft agar. The soft agar containing the phages was placed on the top of the pour plates. This was then incubated at 37 degrees Celsius so the phages can interact with the e.coli in the nutrient agar. So to summarise the theory: The plates contain a bottom layer containing nutrient agar and e.coli where the top layer contains soft agar with the phages so hopefully the phages will interact with the e.coli overnight. I know you Biomed know this already so soz. Although I might not get the results first time, I now have confidence in doing plaque assays and feel this project could be a pretty sick one.

Today was the first practical day which involved making agar, making an e.coli broth which finger crossed will be ok and 6 tubes of nutrient broth containing a small volume of Brayford pool water. These have all been left to incubate and tomorrow I will be starting the soft agar and isolating phages if all goes to plan….

Hi my name is Faris and I have just finished second year of the Forensic Science degree. I have received some funding from the University to carry out a project based on the analysis of antibiotic resistance genes present in bacteriophages. Im pretty excited and should be starting this week and would appreciate help from anyone in the lab and will try and return the favour.