A Butterfly and Biotechnology

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...

Hi readers, I got an idea! (Bulb glows bright!) Yes, an idea to meet all my blog readers if you want to! How cool! What? Are you asking me to stop!? Oh? yes? Are you asking me, "What is the relation between this IDEA and the title of the post AVIDADHAM'15?". Wait, dears. There is a correlation. This idea to meet you all is a function of Avidadham'15! To put it in a mathematical expression :  Idea = f(Avidadham'15)   :P :D This is the result of doing so much Math for semester exams. Okay, coming to the point, What is avidadham'15? Avidadham'15 is an International Conference organised by the Department of Biotechnology, Anna University, Chennai. I think, now you might have got the point. Yes, I'm a post graduate student in the department and I welcome you all to Avidadham'15. It is for 3 days! It will be fun for all research and science lovers, so, all my bacteria lovers, come and join us!  You can meet international and national...

Hi readers, It feels so good to write here, after a long (so long, in fact) gap. How are you all doing? I’m doing great, did you know, I have now joined M.Tech (Biotechnology) in Anna University, Chennai. And, after 20 years of life under the warmth of my parent’s wings, I have finally managed to spread my own wings, out of home. Yes, I have come out of my kutty (small) town, to a big city – Chennai. It feels good in one way but the other? No! It’s not feeling so good the other way. After coming here, I have realized that I was away from the so much polluted world for 20 years. This place, because of tremendous industrial development and stuffs, is polluted extremely, that you should cover your head, face, hands, foot, literally, all your body parts except eyes to keep you clean and safe from the poisonous, dusty, dirty air! Ah, forgot, you should wear big coolers to protect your eyes too. Sometimes, it feels like there is not more than 10% of O 2 in the air! Villages, towns – Rur...

I don't know why, but, I really love this guy! :P Yes, he is PCR! You ask me anything, like, what technique we can use for introducing mutation? what for diagnosis? I'll answer PCR for all! :P Let me talk about him for sometime here. PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) is used for amplifying any gene from a given sample using Taq polymerase, dNTPs, Primers and buffers. After PCR the amplified product or amplification is generally checked by running an Agarose gel electrophoresis. But, in case of Real Time PCR there is no need for running gels as the progress of the PCR is monitored online with the help of fluorophores. Generally SYBR Green dye, Taqman or molecular beacon probes are used for Real Time PCR. In SYBR Green method, the fluorophore binds with the double stranded DNA and produces fluorescence, and hence as the amplification increases, fluorescence increases, but the fluorophore has no specificity and hence, even if the amplified product is not the product of your inter...

Knock Out mouse is a genetically modified mouse in which a particular gene is removed or inactivated. As a particular gene (which encodes for a particular protein) is inactivated, the mouse shows changes in external features or physical and biochemical characteristics.  The first recorded knock out mice was produced in 1989 for which Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies were awarded Nobel Prize. The various reasons for producing knock out mice are ·        To understand the function of a gene ·        To understand various diseases which are due to alterations or mutations in genes ·        It gives an idea for understanding and treating various diseases ·        To develop and test various drugs produced Some of the diseases which are widely studied using mouse models are neuronal diseases like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer...

Whenever I'm made to realise that I'm not clear enough or good at something, I try to make myself clear with it. It happened today, during my laboratory examination, I was asked to perform monocyte isolation from a given blood sample, but, unfortunately, I was not very clear with the principle behind it.(but, still I managed to complete the experiment as I know the protocol, but, knowing the principle behind each step of the protocol clearly is very important, isn't it?). But, nothing is wrong in it, I made myself clear with it now. That's good, right? So, let me share with you some basic principle and protocol for isolating monocyte from blood sample. For isolating monocytes, initially we must isolate PBMC (Peripheral bood mono nuclear cells) from the blood sample. Here, let us make few terminologies clear before starting with the principle. Peripheral blood sample  - It is the blood sample obtained from acral areas of body (in general, it is the blood collected ...