Day 10 - Final Lab Procedure with DaWei

Next we followed DaWei

DaWei's PAGE gel which has been shown in the previous post.

It has been destained and he washed it with water.

The cleaned sample is then placed between two sheets of clear plastic

 The gel is then taken to be scanned so that the results can be saved and further analysed at his own time.

After that he takes it back to the lab. He then transfers it to a sealed plastic bag and placed in a fridge. Thus is so that he can check again on the sample should he have any doubts

Post 3 - Engineering for thought

Benedict:
All of the experiments today, most were new and unusual to me.
Polymerisation on one hand was something that I have learnt a bit in 'O' level chemistry. This was the first time I am able to appreciate the physical process of polymerisation that I has only read in textbooks on. FIrst, the monomer was collected then extracted, then converted to polymer using chemical processes.
The precipitation was slightly more complex than what I had did in 'A' level experiments.
FTIR and hydraulic press were new processes to me. However I was unable to see the process of FTIR as it happened.

Day 3 - Precipitation and Polymerisation

In the afternoon, we went to meet LiHong in the Biomaterial Lab located at the basement of MSE building. She is working on a project to use amino acids to synthesis materials. Her work is on the polymerisation of Serine and Tyrorine with varying composition.

The process of polymerisation of proteins is similar to our A level syllabus where we learnt how amino acids chain up together using a peptide bond between the C terminal and the N terminal.

Firstly, a solution was placed within the Rotary Evaporator. Pressure was decreased so that water can be boiled off and removed at roughly 50 degrees Celsius. The solvent (in this case, water) is being removed so that residue can be obtained. The end product of this procedure is a concentrated glue like substance. 

Rotary Evaporator

Next, she continued to precipitate out the amino acids from the solution using Hexine. In the picture below, Hexene is placed in a glass bottle with the drying agent.

Hexene with Drying Agent to Remove Water

However, the yield of precipitate using Hexine to precipitate out the amino acid is very low. She then tried using deionised water. Fortunately a clear precipitate was obtained using deionised water. She proceeded to use the whole beaker of the concentrated solution and placed it in a freezer at 4 degrees Celsius. 

Precipitation in Progress

After the amino acids were precipitated, LiHong removed the excess water in the beaker. She placed the beaker containing the viscous amino acid into a vacuum oven to obtain the final reactant for polymerisation,

Her previous work in progress: