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Laboratories

The format of the lab section of the course is project-oriented; students carry a series of experiments in parallel throughout the semester. Students perform a series of classical enrichments and isolations, starting from environmental samples collected by the themselves. One of these isolations serves as the starting material for a series of modern molecular biology experiments, in which the student purify DNA, amplify the ribosomal DNA by PCR, and have a portion of this gene sequenced. This sequence information is the starting point for the term project, a detailed molecular phylogenetic analysis of the isolated organism.

You need to bring the following material to the second lab (Jan 23-25):

• 500 ml of pond water - the scummier the better
• 500 ml sediment - the blacker and nastier, the better
• pinch of rich soil - not potting soil
• pinch of rotten fruit - grape, citrus or other acidic fruit would be best
• if you can get it, get some sand, mud, or sediment from a marine or brackish environment, or a saltwater aquarium

The TAs

Wednesday lab Friday lab through Feb 15th	Thursday lab Friday lab starting Feb 20th
Jae Lee Miller lab 515-7230 jylee@unity.ncsu.edu	Oscar Tirado-Acevedo Grunden lab 515-7136 otirado@ncsu.edu

General information

• Safety
  • Lab Safety graphic, by Anthony Lowe, Guilford College
• The Lab Manual (5.4Mbyte PDF) This is just a compilation of these web pages, ready to print out.
• Lab writeups
  • Example notebook entry (212Kbyte JPEG)
  • Example Isolate Description
• Lab prep, media, & supplies

The Labs

• Microscopy
• Unknown Organism isolation for the Term Project
• Bacillus isolation
• Winogradsky Column
• Purple non-sulfur Bacteria isolation
• Polysaccharide degrader isolation
• Yeast/fungi isolation
• Plate count anomaly experiment

Lab schedule

All labs are held in 1522 Gardner Addition from 1:30 - 4:20, on Wednesdays (section 201), Thursdays (section 202) or Fridays (section 203).