Attack of the Mutant Fungus!!!

Hey Guys,

It seems like this whole week has just blown by us, well it did for me at least. I'm working with Dr. Orbach in the Marley Building on the Third floor in the labs directly on the opposite side of the elevators on the right hand side (if you are facing south). The first day in Dr Orbach’s lab was pretty much background information, which I found most helpful with the oncoming days. From his discussions, I have concluded that I will be working with a mysterious fungus that has caused the death of a dog here in Tucson. My job, this summer, is to identify what kind of fungus it is by looking at it genetically and morphologically. He gave me a lot of material to read, which helped me comprehend the delicate world of Fungi. Dr Orbach also showed me the lab and some of the people I would be working in the same room with for the next couple of weeks.

I’m working along side a teacher intern, who has two years of lab experience behind her. Her name is Vicky and she has been keeping the lab from becoming too boring and overwhelming. On the second day, Vicky and I did some PCR and Electrophoresis. The graduate student and lab technician Natalia has been showing me and Vicky the ropes. She provided us with instruction on where all the chemicals, tubes, centrifuges, plates, and what not are. Dr. Orbach’s lab is super organized and super neat.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Natalia let us loose on certain tasks that Dr. Orbach wanted us to do. Wednesday, Vicky and I worked with genomic DNA that was collected from sample soils where pets or animals were known to have been affected by Valley Fever and run gels to see if each sample actually had DNA. Today, Thursday, we both took two specified solutions of DNA and made dilutions from it to produce PCR. Our results were pretty much the same. Both of our PCR reactions produced no DNA product. Also, today I went down to the veterinary diagnostics lab to pick up the samples of fungus that I will be working with for the rest of this summer. The fungus actually looks pretty gross and weird and down right dirty. Everyone in the lab is pretty excited about it and I am too, but the fact that it killed a dog worries me.

Hopefully I will be able to start my actual exploration of the unknown fungus soon, but until then I will continue to run tests on a buddy project with Teacher Intern Vicky.

PS. Everyone in Dr. Orbach's lab is really nice and definately eager to help you if you have questions. It's pretty much do your own thing there and try not to bother everyone else too much. The lab has a very chill environment, but I do have to comment on the fact that one of the rooms smells a lot like a fish tank gone south.