Deeping in our project

Hi Team:

Last session was incredible again. After an explanation to 2e team (parents, teachers, sisters, coordinators etc…); we have a more clear picture where we must reach on Spring next year. 

Almost a representative “sample” of 2e PIIISA 2016 project  team.

In resources I attached the presentation of last day (go to the presentation). And also you can see a link to the video of the PIIISA project 2014 (5 min) we project in order to see an example of a successful PIIISA research performed (http://piiisaandalucia.blogspot.com.es/p/que-es-piiisa.html ).

1^st experiment

Respect to the experiment of the first session related to determine how many bacteria are in a single colony of Sinorhizobium meliloti. We could obtain some conclusions, couldn’t we?. Think about them!!:

Some examples of the plates:

Cristina’s home (Placa 5)

Paula’s Home (placa 7)

We counted colonies and performed  this excel  table:

Under these data we can conclude that:

A single colony of S meliloti contains:   4x10⁵ – 2x10⁶ bact/colony. 

The number looks like depending  of their size.  These data are in agreement with the expected numbers (see previous blogs…). We also discuss about the reasons of this variability. Variability we have to take in account when we perform next mutagenesis experiments … .

Now!!  we know that, among other things, our project deals with counting bacteria!!

Also we tried to understand why some houses look better for bacterial incubation experiments than others (Cristina, and Paula’s home).

At the end of the session, we did bacterial streaking on agar plates in order to obtain single colonies of our experimental strains. Remember 3G and 3I. Remind this tutorial to understand how single colonies must appear from our plates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_0e9WuFTrQ 

Next session we’ll perform our first mutation study.  

We keep in contact!!

My first day in the EEZ; my first impression

Last Monday 16^th of November was an incredible day! isn’ t It?

Now we know what we are going to do. And… what is more important!!! We know each-other. All the students which participate in the project, all the secondary schools we belong to, and of course the lab where our research will occur. 

The Microbiology department in the EEZ-CSIC (our research Center).

All of you write a first impression of this astonishing day. I am pretty sure we are going to finish a good project. At least at the level of the previous years. 

Only to remind you what you did last Monday:

We want to know how many bacteria contain a single colony. 

But, what is a single colony?

We decided to distinguish three types:

-Big colonies (>2 mm), 

-medium colonies (2-05 mm) and 

-small colonies (<0.5mm).

We picked  it up 7 + 1 colonies of all these sizes and we made the corresponding serial dilutions to extrapolate how many bacteria are. We must assume that every single colony is generated by a single bacteria!!!.

We are expecting the pictures of the bacterial plates at your home-incubators (drawers of your rooms).

One picture must been taken on Friday 19th. 

Girls!!, Use cameras, cellular smart-phones and do not forget a dark background!!.

“Testing mutagens”  has just begun !!

Dr Francisco Martinez-Abarca

Estacion Experimental del Zaidin - CSIC

Department of Microbiology

C/ ProfesorAlbareda n 1

18008 Granada

Spain

Welcome

Dear students, parents, teachers, coordinators and people in general:

First of all, give a warm welcome to a New PIIISA Project. The Project of the 2015-2016 scholar course. This project is a natural ongoing of a research-line dealing with mutagenesis on soil bacteria which begun three years ago in the 2013-14 course. The project will be performed in the Microbiology Department of the Estación Experimental del Zaidín belonging to National Research Council Foundation (CSIC).

Previous PIIISA’s studies have shown that we can measure the mutagenesis speed (evolution speed) of the soil bacteria (Sinorhizobium meliloti). In this new project and under this background we will evaluate if S. meliloti can sense the putative mutagenesis effect of substances or processes. It is a real question and we do not have all the answers. Results of this project, although expected, are unknown for the moment.

Everything related with the Project during the course will be shown on this blog. We also uses resources, links, … . In summary we use all the tools which allow us to finish a fantastic project. Project in which all must feel very proud and aim to participate all around us: our parents, our classmates, teachers, friends, colleagues ... . 

This kind of communication is not completely new. Examples of previous PIIISA project-blogs you can find by clicking the links to the right.

In resources section you can find proceeding articles of the PIIISA job of previous editions. In all of them you can come up that all previous PIIISA Projects were finished as we expected in this new one.

And… , for the moment  nothing else. 

Only,  remind and ask for your invaluable collaboration in this blog.

Come on! Together we will make a great project

Dr Francisco Martinez-Abarca

Estacion Experimental del Zaidin - CSIC

Department of Microbiology

C/ ProfesorAlbareda n 1

18008 Granada

Spain