Tiffany: Practice Makes Perfect

Last week I got the opportunity to conduct the last step of protein determination processes on my own. After I had gone through all but the last step of the Western Blot, I was excited to see the results of my experiments and triumphantly show the X-rays of my protein membranes to Gladys. I wanted to make sure that everything in my procedure was correct, so when I was transferring the membranes to the X-ray in the dark room, it took me much longer than usual. I remember looking into the machine many times to see if the X-rays had come out yet. And when they finally did, and I held them up to the light to see the markers, I was superbly...disappointed!!!
There was absolutely nothing at all on the X-rays; even the protein marker that was visible on the membrane itself had not been transferred to the X-ray! I felt like wringing my hands and saying, "NOOOOO!!!!" but luckily I restrained myself. I was extremely sad that all of my work over the past week to prepare the proteins for analysis had been a failure. But now I know that my work was not completely useless; I have learned that science is a trial-and-error process, many times with more errors than true successes. So I will start analyzing my methods to see if I made an error along the way that I did not catch earlier, and fix my mistake the next time I do this process. Even though all my efforts led up to blank X-rays, the good thing about making mistakes is that I will always be acutely aware that everything that I do in each step is so important in leading to a successful result.