Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,

I have been developing an idea for a while now and I am in the experimental setup stage of my experiment. My mentor agrees that my idea is novel and an excellent idea. The problem is I need some rather expensive proteins and an ELISA kit It costs almost $800 dollars. One company I contacted offered to take about $150 out of that but that is still not enough. Has anyone ever had this problem before? Please Help!!

Yes, funding research is a challenge for many scientists! Kits and reagents are expensive. Is there anyway your school has some funds reserved to help you? Or you qualify to apply for funding elsewhere for your project? Good luck!

What will the ELISA measure? If you are unable to get funding is there a different assay you could use instead of the ELISA? On your profile it says you are studying lysozyme and lactoferrin. Lysozyme will lyse bacterial cells. You could measure the activity of the enzyme (how long it takes to lyse a bacterial culture) and use this as an indirect measurement of the amount of enzyme. Lactoferrin turns pink when it is bound to iron. So you can measure the amount of iron bound lactoferrin by measuring the absorption at 465 nm with a spectrometer.

Kierstyn

Thanks for your help. I have already tried many diffrent agencies and private foundations for funding. They are very reluctant to fund a high school student. Microkts thanks for your post. Is there any way you could send me more detailed information about this method. It would be greatly appreciated.


John 10:10 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

Hello,

I have heard a lot about assays in my research so far. Can someone give a comrhendable understanding of assays? Also are there any cheap assays for lysozyme and Lactoferrin.

Thanks!!

Hi,

To answer the question from your other post: "assay" is a general term for any method that you use to determine the presence or amount of something. The "something" that you are measuring can be an enzyme or protein, a chemical, cells ect.

Here is a link to a document that has two examples of an assay to measure the acitivity of lysoszyme.
http://www.ableweb.org/volumes/vol-3/11-snyder.pdf

I couldn't find a protocol detailing how to measure lactoferrin. But I can tell you how to do it. You will need to purchase purified, iron saturated, lactoferrin. With this you can make solutions with different amounts of lactoferrin. These will be your standards. Then you measure the absorbance at 465 nm of each standard. Then you make a graph of absorbance vs. lactoferrin concentration and draw a line that fits the data. For each of your samples you will measure the absorbance at 465 nm. Then you will use the line on your graph to calculate the concentration of iron-bound lactoferrin that corresponds to the absorbance that you measured.

If you give me some more information about what your experiment is I can try to help you develop these assays.

Kierstyn