The secret life of proteins

The week started off with a lecture by John La Cava, of Rockefeller NY and Groningen University, whose team has developed a new scientific aproach to studying protein interactions and their role in the development of diseases. Especially of interest for him is the proliferation of parasitic genes known as LINE-1 retrotransposons. LINE-1 genes use a “copy and paste” mechanism to expand within the human genome, and as such play an important (but not yet fully understood) role in the genome of cancer patients. La Cava uses Cas-9 to insert LINE-1 into DNA in vitro to study its effects. It was a tough lecture to follow because of its very specialized content and our limited knowledge up to that point, but for me it did open up the vastness of research done in cell biology, the current limits of what we are able to know about the building blocks of life, and the role chance plays in it all.

On Tuesday, two workshops dove deeper into designing DNA using CRISPR CAS-9. Fabio Junio Ferreira showed us how to use digital DNA design tools such as Benchling and Ensembl.org, and Kas lectured (much needed, I would have preferred this lecture earlier) on the exact workings of the CAS-9 protein in the process of cutting and editing DNA.

Today we also unpacked our bacterial dyeing experiments, which worked out quite well with the acrylic molds of the HKU logo:

<img src=”/images/janhku1.JPG” alt=”janhku1” style=”width: 400px;/>

<img src=”/images/janhku2.JPG” alt=”janhku2” style=”width: 400px;/>

<img src=”/images/janhku3.JPG” alt=”janhku3” style=”width: 400px;/> <img src=”/images/janhku4.JPG alt=”janhku4” style=”width: 400px;/>

I later sew them back onto the coats at the biolab.

<img src=”/images/labcoats.JPG” alt=”labcoats” style=”width: 400px;/>

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