A Butterfly and Biotechnology

Dear readers, I apologize that I stopped writing since last year. I don't have any great excuse other than poor planning. I was lost on my way to understand marine biology. As you might be knowing, I switched field, moved from my focus over bacteria and human disease related studies to climate change and marine biology. However, my research focus continues to be in molecular biology. Long story short, I was learning all about climate change, ocean acidification, ocean, marine animals in the past year. I even learnt how to spawn and culture oysters. How cool is it? Not cool?! Well, I think it is cool!  I can setup mini Ocean acidification systems which mimics the future acidified ocean conditions; I even gained some plumbing related skills. This was totally a new experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I had a tough summer in a rural fishing village in China, learning how to grow oysters from the Chinese oyster farmers (for those who do not know what I am doing: I ...

Neih hou!  Don't roll you eyes wondering what it is! "Neih hou" is how you say "hello" in Cantonese. Guess what, I am in Hong Kong and therefore the language Cantonese. I came to Hong Kong this summer as an intern before officially joining as a PhD Student. This is my second experience abroad, far away from home, new language, new culture, I expected me to have a "really" bad cultural shock, but, actually I experienced only 50% of what I expected. For a girl who have used the marina beach only for eating "sundal", bikini in beach was a shock (FEEL FREE TO JUDGE ME!). The first time, I went to the big wave beach here, I was the only one who was totally covered, when everyone was enjoying their Beer, I was slowly sipping my lemon juice (THE ODD ONE OUT!). I realized how beautifully different the world outside is! There is no single standard for right or wrong, it varies in different countries, in different regions around the world. And it ...

Hi there! (am using Whatsapp) :D When I started writing this, I wanted to start with a "Hi" and suddenly, the famous Whatsapp status came into my mind! :P See, am really addicted to Whatsapp nowadays, changing DP and Status often. Oof, I should stop writing whatsapp status and start writing here. (This is NO ADvertisement for Whatsapp :P) In the last post, I said that I'm in the USA doing research and now, am back in India after successfully completing the internship! Yaaai, back home, back home! It feels good when you are in home, yes, am happy to be home. But, sometimes, its good to visit places and learn new things, leaving home. Let's come to the purpose of this post now! In this post, am gonna share few things I learnt from my internship. I was basically cloning different fusion proteins and was doing invitro degradation studies of those cloned proteins using western blots. I've done cloning before, when I was doing my under graduation (UG), but,...

Hi dear sweet lovely reader, Didn't meet you for a long time... Just after complaining about the stipend problem in the last post, I actually wanted to write a lot here, but, couldn't find time (Such a lazy girl, I am!). As you might be knowing, the author (me) is the butterfly here :P And, I flew for the first time!! YEAH! I FLEW! I flew like a butterfly! It was an awesome experience flying for the very first time! (ow, no! I dint put a trans-gene in my body and fly after getting  a pair of wings, but with a passport and VISA). I'm this girl, full of dreams wishing to do "this", "that" and "all kind of stuffs that one can do". And, one among those dreams was to fly one day! TO FLY FREE!(I mean, not free of cost :P, but liberation) I always wanted to fly in those big, big airplanes, but, I always have avoided that mode of transport. Reason? Obviously, it would burn a big hole in my dad's pocket (actually he can afford if I wan...

Personal and professional ethics are different. Professional ethics vary from one profession to other. Doctors have different, engineers have different ethics. As a technology student, am having a paper "Professional ethics and human values" in my syllabus. I wondered, Is it essential to teach ethics? human values? to an engineering student? What will you answer to this question? Yes? NO? If yes, you may justify saying, yes engineers and doctors must have some ethics, human values. I agree, but, is it essential to teach ? Have it as a separate paper? Yes, it's essential, we must have some ethics and this paper gives an idea like, how to approach a social problem, how to deal with the customers.. so on.. But, i won't answer yes! I will answer "NO" Ya, Ethics and human values are not something which one can obtain by studying a paper and appearing for an exam. As a doctor, he must be having that values in him, he must be so kind at heart, must not ...

Hello! Wish you good time with loads of smile :) :) This is a personal post. I can say a page of my diary. You can find my way of learning, my preparations for my semester exam. I'm in the end of my study holidays! The pleasant days, lazy days. My exams were scheduled initially on 8th may, I started studying on 4th may. I started studying "Unit Operations - Mixing and Agitation" at a speed of about 10,000 rpm :P But, this university people, I think they were burning at their stomach, seeing me studying. Yes, they postponed the exam to 15th may. Then, who will study after that? I closed the book, started writing story :) :) Now, the story is going good, but my studies? :( :( very worst :(  Only finished a unit in Unit operations :( After that didn't touch the books at all. :( What I do during study holidays? 1) Reading everything, except text book. :D 2) Eating snacks for every half an hour :D :P 3) Sleeping 10p.m to 10a.m 4) Went to exhibition two time...

Every story has a hero and a villan (enemy). My story too have them. I love my hero, he is too smart and acts smart and good. But, this villan, he always troubles me, annoys me :( You wanna know who are they? If you imagined hero as a guy and villan as another guy, am sorry, as usual, I meant it related with my subject. The hero is antibody and villan is antigen :D :D :D My dad told me a story when I was too young ( hope I was doing 3rd class ) I got an wound in my right leg, I got fever because of the pain :( So, I didn't attend my classes that day. I was lying in my bed and dad was cleaning  and  dressing my wound. I was wearing a gown , it had a rope near the hip portion , I was chewing that rope. Dad started telling a story , " appaa kutty (dad's pet) , you should not chew your dress , your dress might have lots of germs, they are all villans (enemies) and they will fight against the soldiers in your body. I started wondering and asked him , " apaa (da...

Veeeeeee... It worked , it worked!!! My streaks were perfect this time! As I mentioned in my previous posts ( My streaks ) &  Isolated I loved it!  , we didn't get a better result for our streaking experiment. Our agar plates were torn! The reason we guessed for the failure was insufficient agar amount . We used 1.8g/100ml agar concentration. This time , we rectified and increased our concentration of agar to 2.5g/100ml . We used SPECTRUM agar. For this brand of agar, 2.5g/100ml worked well for streaking. My streaks didn't tear my plates. :))))) I'm sooooooo happy that I streaked my plates too good. When I tried streaking my petri plates for the first time, I was little bit afraid that I couldn't do well. But, this time , I did a good job. Sure to get isolated colonies of my microbes. An Agar recipe! :P My lab hours are too good like this colorful recipe! Image courtesy: http://nodessert.wordpress.com/   Cultures we streaked : 1) Escherchia coli ...

:))) Haiyaa I know to cook for my microbes now. :) I know to cook the following recipes for my tiny ones : 1) Nutrient Agar 2) Nutrient Broth This is not for microbes but for me.. :P A fruity Agar recipe Got this pic by google image search :P Yum yum yum... 3) LB ( Luria - Bertani )  agar 4) LB Broth The composition : 1) Nutrient broth :  For 1000ml : 5g of glucose 5g of peptone 3g of beef extract 5g of Nacl 2) Nutrient agar :  15g of agar added to nutrient broth of 1000ml 3) LB Broth : For 1000 ml : 10 g of Nacl 10 g of tryptone 5 g of yeast extract 4) LB agar: 15 g of agar added to 1000 ml LB broth We prepared the medium. But, I don't know to prepare cotton plug :) :) . I tried preparing plugs.. :) :D We were asked to practice "preparing cotton plugs" by our mam. We used lots of cotton.. But still most of us didn't get it good. "bluppp... " sound must come mam told. We tried and some of us got the sound too. when we got t...

Venturi meter  Oooo.. Pipes, Flows, Fluid flow rate... A different class of chemical engineering, which i never expected in Biotechnology. Thought that mechanical guys alone read on & deal on this thermodynamics!!! But, I too dealt with this thermodynamics. The chemical engineering lab which includes exercises like, 1) Venturi meter 2) Orifice Meter 3) Rota meter 4) Packed bed 5) Fluidised bed... The list goes on and ends with number 14! But, I do remember only these topics. Completed with the exercise, " FLUID FLOW THROUGH A STRAIGHT CIRCULAR PIPE " in the last lab on thursday!. Here we go with that lab experience.  Noted the reading from manometer and stop clock successfully with my two batch mates! Some data we searched for calculation : 1) Density of Mercury : 13,600 Kg/m^3  2) Viscosity of Water  : 0.001 Kg/(m-s) 3) We were in need of the area of the collecting tank .... A terrible attempt by me, for measuring the width & breadth. ...

Manure for  my Garden !!!  I'm a bit different; I never grow roses,lilies, sunflowers in my garden; But, just cute little microscopic flowers ---> microbes!!! Each and every person will have their own favorite dish. Mine is naan and butter masala. What's your's? What do these little cells require for growing well?  But, what do my microbes need? What's their favorite? Got an answer!!! Got an answer! They love Agar!!! Starting with basics of preparing nutrient agar in my lab tomorrow. Before the lab, we use to read on for the viva by our professor! Oooooo... My microbes are nonveggy. They love beef extracts, so i must add some to my nutrient agar! Got some questions :   1) At what temperature does agar liquefy and solidify???          It's very simple to answer this,  Solidifies at 32 to 40 degree C. Liquefies at 80 degree C. 2) What role does agar serve as a nutrient ???        ...

I was wondering till yesterday, why is it necessary to learn Thermodynamics in Biotechnology..!!! Got the answer today. Learning the fluid flow rates and heat transfer would help me better in industry when we design a fermenter; moreover, it would help in understanding the flow of bulk biological products through a pipe. Rotameter; Flow through a cylindrical straight pipe & annulus; Fluidisation, Exatraction... mmm... Some more things sir explained in the lab.  Got to know the fourier's equation for heat transfer! ( Hope I'm right :) )  I love answering questions, whenever a lecturer questions, I would open my mouth, whether i'm right or wrong!!! I get corrected by doing so. Sometimes, this leads to funny situations when friends start laughing at me coz of my silly answers!! & sometimes due to my silly doubts!. But, I never mind, :P I dare to answer everything!!! I love to be an apple in the eyes of my lecturer :) :) :) :) I got your mind voice.. But, i don't c...