Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I'm trying to be one of the very first students from my high school to ever go to the science fair. As the subject line would suggest, I would like to make radiation resistant bacteria using tardigrade dna. I have researched where to find tardigrades and I know the name and dna sequence of the protein I need (Dsup, short for damage suppressor). I understand that this project will require some money on my part, but I would like help with figuring out what materials are necessary to create recombinant dna and put it into bacteria plasmids.

Hi Stephen,

Welcome to Science Buddies! This is an amazingly original idea for a science project. However, it will be very challenging as everything requires sterile technique and , as you know, relatively expensive materials. Do you have access to a molecular biology lab? Or, will you be doing this in your high school lab?

You need to do a lot of background reading at this point to get the information you need for your project. Here is a project idea from this website that uses a commercial kit to clone green fluorescent bacteria. Perhaps you could adapt this kit for your project. Please do contact the kit manufacturer (Bio-Rad) and ask for more details.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p024.shtml

The most important information in this project is in the background section of the project idea, which is the molecular cloning laboratory manual. This is the guide that molecular biologists use to learn about techniques for their research projects.

Please look through the manual to find the protocols for your project. And please do post again if you have any questions.

Donna Hardy

I was planning on trying this at my high school lab. However, I am beginning to wonder if the local community college would have the resources I need (which at this point I'm pretty sure are chemicals like restriction enzymes). I have looked into the kit you mentioned, and while I believe I could get the funds together, it would be better if I didn't have to. Any advice for emailing a local professor there? If nothing else, they could give me some advice and sign off as mentors on my paperwork.

Thank you for your advice,
Stephen

Hi Stephen,

I don’t know if a community college would have all of the materials you need. You need access to a complete molecular biology lab; something that you would probably find at a university.

You can start by looking up professors at your local college. Generally, professors will include information on the research projects they are working on and the grants they have to work with.

I recommend doing a Google search for the name of any universities close to you and molecular biology labs. This should bring up names of molecular biology professors and you can check for any projects that are somewhat related to your field of interest. The e-mail addresses should be included, so you can send a message with your proposal. It is likely that no one will respond because professors are busy with teaching, research, directing graduate students and writing grants. Here’s an example of a search I did: :

https://mcb.berkeley.edu/faculty-and-research

If your teacher or anyone you know has contacts at the university or community college, ask for a referral.
Also check to see if there are any commercial companies that sell molecular biology products close to you. Perhaps you could ask for access to one of their labs for your project.

Also, check out these ideas for finding a local mentor from this website:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tors.shtml

If you are not successful in finding a lab and a mentor, I recommend working on a project on radiation resistance or on tardigrades that you have the resources to do. You should do background reading and select a unique project. If would be helpful if you could learn some of the techniques you would need for your original project idea. If successful, you could use your history to help get more resources for next year.

I hope this helps. Good luck. Do post again if you need more help.

Donna

I'm doing a project that involves making radiation resistant bacteria. I'm going to have 40 petri dishes. 20 control and 20 experimental. Groups of 4 (each group consisting of 2 control and 2 experimental) will be radiated with a short-wave uv light for a varying amount of time. What is the best way for me to analyze whether or not the protein I gave them to protect them from radiation actually protected them? What is the best way to collect the data? What data should I even be looking for? I have access to a spectrophotometer, but that would not be able to tell me the amount of viable colonies, and I thought about using that. At the very least the experimental group will have more bacteria, living and dead, than the control group. I just feel like the data can be more in depth.

Hello Stephen,
Please keep your posts on the same project in the same topic so the experts who have been helping you will see your follow-up questions. thank you.
Moderator

My apologies. I will do so now. Thank you