Women in STEM

Setting up bacterial cultures

On our first day of the program, we set up the bacterial cultures for the rest of the experiments throughout the week. We created culture broths so that the bacteria had optimal growing conditions, using sodium chloride, yeast powder, distilled water, tryptone, adenosine and glucose. Additionally, we also had the opportunity to learn how to use new scientific tools such as a micropipette, electronic Bunsen burner and an autoclavable.

Microscopy

To obtain a greater understanding of the bacteria we were working with during the program, we looked at E. coli cells under a light microscope. This allowed us to see the shape of the bacteria and the different colonies, in comparison to other bacteria samples such as S. epidermidis.

Kegg bioinformatics and metabolomics

Before we could commence the next stage of our experiment, it was important for our group to learn about metabolomics, which is the study of small molecules (metabolites) that are involved in metabolism. To do so, we had the help of some scientists from the Bio21 institute who taught us about these processes in the human body. Furthermore, we used Kegg bioinformatics which is a database resource to look at the pathways and molecules in greater detail.

Bacteria harvest and metabolic arrest

The next day, we collected our bacteria samples and put them into the centrifuge to create a bacterial pellet. Then, we removed the liquid, added a saline solution and vortexed the bacteria for a few seconds. This was repeated around 5 times. We removed the last of the liquid and added them into separate tubes. These were then put into liquid nitrogen, followed by warm water for a total of 9 times to break the cell wall.

Fluorescence microscopy

On the 3rd day, we were given the opportunity to learn how to use a fluorescence microscope, which uses special stains to highlight organelles in a cell. In our case, we viewed the retina of Zebrafish, or danio rerio, and identified the different blood vessels in this species. This was a highly valuable experience, because we all had never had the opportunity to use such a cool piece of equipment.

Data processing and analytics

On the second last day of our program, we finally received the results of our experiment that were produced from the mass spectrometer. This piece of technology had identified over 600 molecules in our samples; hence it was our job to go through the data and identify relevant information. To do so, we loaded our data into software called Skyline which converted everything into graphs, demonstrating the number of molecules present in the sample at a certain time. While this process was a bit confusing, the Bio21 scientists helped us to understand the relation between our data and metabolism.

Identifying drug targets

The final step in our project was to find relevant molecules detected by the mass spectrometer that could potentially be inhibited in a metabolic pathway, to furthermore kill the cancer cells. We did this by choosing molecules we interpreted to be significant, searching them up on the Human Metabolome Database and researching their properties in the human body. If we thought that a particular metabolite had significance in relation to cancer, we would then locate its place in metabolic pathways to find potential drug targets.

Bio21 tour

The Bio21 lab tour was a highlight of the week, as we got to see many machines that are used in scientific research, meet a few of the scientists and learn about what happens in a real research lab. We also viewed the equipment that was used to process our bacteria and were given an overview of how this technology works. This gave all of us a great insight into future career pathways into science research as well.