S-STEM Scholar Zaira Grijalva's Blog: Week 11. Semester 2. Research

The research was intense this week. I spent most of the week finding different buffers for the cellulase complex incubation. I learned I should have diluted the buffer I used in my previous extraction even further, this may have caused serious damage to the structure of the enzyme and rendered it useless from the beginning.

As we come closer to the end of the semester and I feel I haven't advanced much, I had moments of a lot of frustration and defeat. However, with the support and advice from other scholars and Matt and Josh, I felt re-energized toward the end of the week and decided to clear my mind a bit by spending some time working in identifying Olivia's bacteria (remember the fish Cel dissected a few weeks ago?). That was fun and helped me take a step back to look at my project with a new light and getting some other things in motion.

I inoculated a couple of plates with leaflets from a Palo Verde tree that seem to be decaying, hopefully I will get some fungus to grow and isolate exoenzymes from! Also I found fungus growth in an apple I bought at the store and I started a plate with that as well. It looked very similar to the pictures I found of Aspergillus, so I am hopeful.

Matt spent sometime with me going over running PCRs and then we realized I can't really run one next week until Thursday, but that should give me time to prepare for an extraction utilizing the modified protocol with a revised enzyme step and to start growing the fungi in the wheat germ, corn steep and malt broth!

Although I am not sure what I would report in my research paper and I am feeling a bit stuck. I am positive for things to come. Please refer to the pics below for fungi plates and for Olivia's investigation.