Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi.

I am entering the Google science fair and plan on submitting the project bacteria transformation efficiency.

Just wanted to gather thoughts as to if this competition is okay for someone 16 to be submitting? Secondly what do you think about the project itself being in the fair and also what else could I add to it that would make it stand out?

Thank you
Skander

Hi there!

This sounds like a great project to be doing (I'm a microbiologist - so I love all things bacteria!).

I would think this is a good project to be entering into the competition, although I'm not very familiar with the Google science fair. Do they have any specific guidelines that need to be followed?

My questions to you:
1 - Have you already started to work on this project?
2 - Have you read through all the information ScienceBuddies has regarding bacterial handling? https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ques.shtml - This is really important to check out to make sure you understand safety when working with bacteria.
3 - Do you have access to a lab?
4 - Have you talked with your science teacher to see if they have any other guidance or information on being safe when working with bacteria?
5 - Check out the "make it your own" tab on the project page for some starting suggestions to make it stand out.

I hope this will help. Please let us know if you have any questions! Best of luck in the competition

Nikki

Thanks for your reply. I haven't started work on this project but will do so next month after my exams. I have read through all the information regarding bacteria handling, I do have acces to a lab which is at a university.

The thing is I have checked the make it your own tab and want to do the one step transformation but am confused as to how I'll put that in to the project and don't know where to find the procedure for it?

Anything else that would make the project more advanced.

Another thing is I want to link this to the regeneration of planaria but have got stuck as to how they would he linked?

Any help would be appreciated thankssss

For the one step transformation you will need to read the paper that ScienceBuddies has cited: Try the one-step transformation protocol (Chung, Niemala, and Miller, 1989) compared to the method described in the Experimental Procedure section. You can find it here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC286873/.

I would suggest reading the paper and see what you can take out of it both for the protocol as well as maybe other ideas. Another suggestion I have is once you start going with carrying out your project, coming up with more advanced ideas or ways you can add on might be more evident to you. As you work though it and see your results, you might generate new questions that you can expand your project with.

Nikki

I actually did this exact experiment in 8th grade, last year. Now I'm in 9th grade, I gotta say that Google Science fair is a very tough competition. Probably harder than the actual international science fair.

Basically in my experiment, I determined the effect of dna concentration on transformation efficiency. The DNA I was using was the pglo plasmid. And my goal was to effectively put this DNA into the E coli cell. I used heat shocking to move the plasmid and into the cell. I found out that the higher the concentration of plasmid, the worse transformation efficiency actually is.

Hope I helped!
-ALANG