A Butterfly and Biotechnology

As a biotechnology student whether I'm taking care of my meals plate or not, I have to take good care of my petriplates. I wash my petriplates better than my meals plate! Yes, we never autoclave and sterilise our meals plate, but we do for our petriplates! We ( I mean me and my friends) enjoy cleaning and autoclaving our petriplates in our  department media room. And you know, my friends always complaint that I'm never accompanying them in cleaning. Yes, I'll go, wrap my petriplates, put it in autoclave, but I find it very hard to wash! Always, I do autoclave, but, never wash after the autoclaving, I'll give that easy job to my friends :P I love my petriplates! Yes, I love them a lot. But, how do I say that I love my petriplates? I love them because I'm always with them. I love them because, even whether I do complex Genetic engineering or simple Microbiology, I always need them! And the final reason for loving my petriplates is they are so cute, especially,...

I learnt genetic engineering, and of course, about plasmids. But, when I was questioned about the types of plasmid, God, I was blinking! :( I had known plasmid only as a vector most times, I was aware of the types of vectors but, types of plasmids? :( Okay, It's not a great shame, I learnt it now! Let me share here about the types of plasmids, just what I learnt. Based on the functions of a plasmid they are classified as, Resistance Plasmids: These are the plasmids which have resistance genes. For example the gene coding beta lactamase which offers resistance against beta lactum antibodies like ampicillin. This is an important thing which is used while performing cloning experiments for checking the transformation. This was called as "R Factor" before the discovery of plasmids. Fertility plasmids (F Plasmids): And, these type of plasmids they have important genes called tra genes, never wonder, tra genes are transfer genes which are essential for the non sexua...

In the previous post, GM Mosquitoes #1   we had seen about the GM mosquitoes used for curing malaria. Now, we are gonna see about the GM mosquitoes designed for eradicating mosquitoes population! Aedes aegypti is the mosquito species which spreads Dengue. Nowadays, people are suffering severely because of this Dengue. In most cases it just leaves with mild fever. But, in some cases, Dengue is deadly! So, to get rid of this great dengue nuisance, scientists had found a solution - GM mosquitoes! We had seen that in the case of eradication of malaria by GM mosquitoes that scientists had made the mosquitoes resistant to malaria causing protist, but, here in this case of dengue the genetic modification is different. Dengue! In the case of dengue, male mosquitoes are made sterile and when they mate with the wild type female mosquitoes, their young ones are made unviable i.e they die before reaching adult stage. So, this reduces the population of mosquitoes by the death of ...

You are troubled at the mid-night? Your days are affected due to the lack of sound sleep? I can understand; The "mosquitoes", they are responsible for all this. We can bear with them if they are just biting and sucking a drop of blood, but, never, when they are injecting us with something like a "doctor", that too, which is never going to cure the disease like doctor's injection, but, going to give us disease. Mosquito bats, liquids :( even with the help of these things, we are getting malaria, dengue, chikungunya :( :( Scientists had found a solution for this greatest problem of our night!(nowadays daytime too) GM mosquitoes, these genetically modified species are resistant to diseases like malaria.  MALARIA! How malaria generally spreads! As we all know, its because of mosquitoes, especially the female Anopheles mosquito which gets the virus when it sucks blood from an infected animal/human. Half of the life cycle of the Plasmodium speci...

Malaria is one of the well known diseases caused by mosquito bite (the female anopheles mosquito) Malaria is generally caused by four different Plasmodium species: P.vivax P.falciparum P.ovale P.malariae Mosquitoes act only as carriers, as we all know .We have to suffer badly if we are affected by malaria. But, you need not suffer from malaria, else we can say, you will not get affected with malaria at all, if you have sickle cell anaemia! Image: Google “Hey, you, don’t you have sense, for getting away from a disease you ask us to catch hold of other?”, is this the question peeping out from your mind right now? If yes, go ahead and read. Yes, as I said already, you won’t be affected by malaria if you are a person with sickle cell anaemia. But, don’t worry; there is another possible way too, to avoid malaria. When you have the genes responsible for sickle cell anaemia (is a genetic disorder in which the Red Blood Cells will be sickle shaped ...

Hi, I'm gonna share you an article which I read in Science column of a magazine. Here we go! We are all aware about "Global Warming". Agriculture is affected much because of this. We are in water shortage. Due to Global warming, plants are affected and yield is decreasing all over the world. To overcome this problem, "GM" (Genetically modified) plants were preferred to the "wild" varieties. But the disadvantage of using GM plants is that they take much time to grow or they need more money. Moreover there are "different" opinions with "BT Brinjal". People don't prefer to consume them. Scientists had found a solution to this problem. "Microbiome" is that solution.  What is Microbiome? Microbiome is a symbiotic group of Bacteria, Virus and fungi. They have a symbiotic relationship among themselves and also with the plants.  This Microbiome was first found in the plants surviving extreme conditions of tem...

Before getting deep into something, we must know the basics. Here we go with some basic questions and their answers. Question number 1: What are the three major domains of Biological system? Prokaryotes ; Archaea ; Eukaryotes Prokaryotes: Example: Bacteria They lack true nucleus. They have cell wall. They lack membrane bound organelles. The bacteria which is used mostly are Escherchia coli (E.coli) Eukaryotes: Example: "WE" - Homo sapiens (Humans) The eukaryotes are well developed, multicellular. They do not have cell wall (but plants do have, there are certain exceptions). They have well developed nucleus, membrane bound organelles. Archaea: (False bacteria) They survive extreme conditions (extremophiles). They were isolated even from volcanic hot springs, imagine, how good they are in surviving extreme conditions. They look similar to bacteria but their metabolic pathways and genes are closely related to eukaryotes. Question Number 2: Why eukaryotes don'...

Hi, I was reading for starting a project in microbiology. But, I didn't start with. Here I had shared something which I referred and found useful. This is a post with basic ideas regarding projects so far done with pepper by various scholars and some tips for effective usage of pepper in day to day life to fight against microbes. We all use pepper, chilli, onion etc in our recipes. You know, they give you strength to fight against microbes? Pepper is found to be effective against Gram positive bacteria. It affects the cell membrane of the bacteria and destroys it (Mode of action) Projects carried out so far: (not by me - referred online) 1) Using "disc diffusion method" the zone of inhibition of the crude extract of Piper nigrum ( black pepper) and various other types of pepper were determined on various test species of bacteria. 2) Various combinations such as mixture of "pepper, turmeric, honey" were tested using disc diffusion in certain projects....

Hi, If you wanna read some useful Biotech stuff scroll down and read questions in this post. Else, start reading from the beginning. My exams are going in a "okay" manner! After my  Microbio exam , I started playing with out preparing for the next exam! I started sitting like a ghost nowadays! Yes, I play all day, and at the end of the day I start reading for my exam by 6 or 7p.m. And, before the day of my Basic Industrial Biotechnology exam, I played Cards :P :D , but, I never win the game :( :( Started studying by 6p.m had dinner in between and studied non stop till the next day 5a.m! I didn't sleep at all. I know, this is not good for health, I need a good sleep before exam. But... I don't wanna miss the fun at home during the day time by sitting alone and studying. My little brother and  friends, they all are enjoying their school summer holidays. They are making fun and much noise during day, then, how come I can read? I'l take my book, pen, notes a...

Hi, Wish you good time. My Semester exams started. Today I wrote my favorite paper "microbiology". The question was easy. But, the answers were only little tough :P Anyways, I managed to do well. :) There in the question paper, I had a wonderful question! I started thinking, "cha, we had never thought like this..!" The question was very simple, but, I didn't know the answer. Even now I'm not sure about the answer. I had been using microscopes, mostly optical - bright field microscopes over a past few years, may be from my 11 th class I can say. I had read about Dark field microscope too. But, I had never thought of converting a bright field microscope to a dark field one! But, this question paper setters, really they are great. I felt  like saying, "what an idea sir ji", on seeing the question. :P :P :D The question was, "can you convert a bright field microscope to a dark field microscope? If so how?" I don't kno...

Hi, As I said in my previous post  Viva Voce #1 , my university practical exams are going on, out of the 4 practicals, now I completed 3 :) Today was a day of E.coli, as I got E.coli with all experiments :) Microbio is my favorite favorite subject, and the lab, I love to be in microbio lab with my microbial buddies :) :P Here we go with my microbiology practical exam :) I prepared well for my lab exam yesterday night. I made myself clear with all the concepts behind lab techniques and experiments. Had good confidence :) as this is my favorite lab :) I was given with a question paper saying: Major experiment:  Inoculate 10% of E.coli culture in nutrient broth of ph5 and check the growth rate by measuring turbidity and plot a graph. Minor experiment:  Perform gram staining of the given culture, observe shape, color and interpret the results. :) :) :)))) I got a biggggggggg smile when I saw this easy question paper and started with my experiment :) I clea...

Feeling low, Feeling uninteresting! I started hating you! Is it me??! Is it myself who hate you?  I loved you these many months, I hugged you tight in my bed when I sleep. How great our days were, when we were together! :( :( But now! I hate you. It's because of , It's all because of me.  Wondering?! What happened to my love? Mm., as usual., I didn't mention about love between a boy and a girl, but, love between my microbio and me. ( Don't get tensed, I love my subjects that much :P seriously, I love them much)  "Favorite, lovely, interesting... ", the words which i often used to describe my microbio paper! Now, it became,  "boring, uninteresting, .."  :( :( It's too good to read and experiment with microbe's morphology and metabolisms. But, this classifications....!!!!  Oh my god, this is too lengthy, even the infinite list of castes in India could be memorized, but not this classification chart! I love reading, but, not mem...

How cool it would be if we have an easy technique for preserving our friendship! No fights and breakups for silly reasons. No betrayals, nothing would go wrong then. But, unfortunately we don't have any such easy technique.  The technique is too hard for most people. To preserve your friendship, Guide your friend to a right path when HE/SHE goes wrong. Stay with them even when HE/SHE has tough times. Never feel jealous on your friend's victory! ( this is a much important thing to follow, but, most times, the evil part of us tend to be jealous , but, we won't show this jealousy feel  out ) Money - this sometimes could create a problem - so, have to be careful! "Love your friends as you love love yourself!" :P    This would probably preserve your friendship to the maximum.  But, I need not follow any of the above mentioned techniques to preserve my friendship with my friends :) I'm much lucky that my friends would never leave me alone, even i...

Hii...!! This time I'm gonna share my colorful  valentine search! For the valentine's day, we use to wear some specific colors which has specific means. Let me explain you, how my valentine was. I wore a grey colored costume :) (because that was not in the list of valentine). And, I went in search  of  purple & pink & black! purple (blue)  ----> not in love! Pink ----> Gonna propose! Black ---> hates love! :) :) Why i was searching these colors?? Any guesses???  Kindly tolerate with me & proceed further reading! After a good search, I found a lovely purple, pink and black! :) Let me explain you the situation! We had first three hours of theory class on the valentine's day. After the theory hours, I was much excited and eager to go to our lab! Because , our lab hours are the most happy, enjoyable times! okay, let me come to the point now, why i searched for those colors?? Not only myself, all my class mates  searched for these...

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 ...

   When your isolated from people, you will feel bad. But., I'm happy with isolation :D. Yeah., don't wonder! Quadrant Continuous I did STREAKING in my lab as I mentioned in my yesterday's lab ( MY STREAKS ). I went to my incubator and checked for the growth. I streaked  E.coli & Lacto bacillus.  I thought my streaking was too bad to get isolated colonies. But., to my surprise I got isolated colonies. Showed my plates with enthu to mam. She said, " mm good, you got isolated colonies". I felt too happy. What I know about streaking : Purpose of streaking :  Why to Streak? 1) To get isolated colonies. ( mostly bacteria ) 2) To check the presence of microbes in a sample ( sometimes) Types: 1) Quadrant streaking: The plate is divided into 4 quadrants and streaking is done. 2) Continuous streaking: Continuous streak made from top to bottom. As I mentioned we are going to do streaking with 2g/100ml and 2.5g/100ml agar in  next lab. My ...

Today's microbio lab! I entered the lab with enthu! We had planned learning streak plate method today. The medium agar was ready. My friends prepared it and autoclaved by morning 8.30. Usually i reach college only by 9 in morning! :D :D Don't mistake that i'm irregular! I go by college bus! It crawls like a snail to college! Okay., let me come to the point now. We started our experiment by 12 noon. We poured AGAR to our plates. Solidified the agar! Mam started explaining how to streak. When she started streaking, our agar started tearing. :( :(  The reason is we added less agar in the medium.  We added 1.8g of agar for 100ml. But., mam felt like "we must add some more". In between., we  a few tried with the already prepared plates. I torn two plates :) :) . Didn't get good streaks. Then., we prepared Agar with 2g/100ml and 2.5g/100ml. We autoclaved it. We didn't continue pouring and solidifying because time was about 4p.m. Lab time gets over by 4.3...

Mm... I know to isolate the microbial friends from soil and milk samples :)))  Learnt it in my lab :) tried it and found the results good. We used just a random soil sample. First the soil was diluted in 100 (10^-2) ml of water. Then serial dilution was made till we reached 10^-6. then using spread plate and pour plate methods we inoculated our microbial soil samples.  If milk, 1ml of sample diluted in 100ml at first. then serial dilution till 10^-6. The plates were incubated at 35 degree celsius for 24 hours. Observation:   Next day we found colonial growths in our plates :) Majority of the colonies were circular & punctiform (small circles) . Some erose type(irregular) were also observed. As the dilution increases, the colony number decreases. I learnt, "Pure culture can be isolated by dilution - Serial dilution".  This is a basic thing in microbio lab. But, the happiness i experienced with this can't be explained. I felt as if i were a scientist...

:))) 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...

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 ???        ...