Thursday 16th June

The group began the day in the Research Room getting up to date with the blog, updating and finishing off various “bits of blog” that we had started and making sure we had plenty of photographic evidence of all our activities. The blog was an effective way to collect all of our work and discuss any findings as a group. This took up most of the morning on the second to last day of the two week lab work experience.

After a lunch break, Tammy and Sophie continued the work on the E. faecium samples. Their first job was to anxiously check the plates streaked the week before to see if any had successfully produced collonies.  They were very pleased to find some did which showed these ones had been successfuly stored, and these streak plates can be used to produce “stab” cultures (obtained by “stabbing” bacterial samples into bottles of agar before storage).

After collecting the successfully grown streak plates form the fridge, they were placed onto the bench and made up the required solutions.  More M17 and lactose agar were made to use the following day for “stab” cultures.  We also made up some glycerol and M17 broth for freeze-dried samples.  Both ways of storage are a good way of preserving the bacteria for use in future progects.

The M17 broth solution was collected and placed into sterile plastic sample tubes, and from each successfuly grown streak plate, a tube was fully labelled with the identity of the particular bacerial sample.  Following aseptic techniques using a “flamed” wire loop, a single collony were scraped from the streak plate and scraped onto the inside of the tube containing the broth and mixed.  These are to be used for storage by freeze-drying with glycerol later.  These bacterial samples were placed in the incubator overnight.

Laura and Gemma sifted through the many years worth of bacterial sample that are stored in the labs. They then prepared stab cultures from these in order for easier storage. This took the best part of the afternoon but their work will be well worth it as these new condensed samples will take up less room and will be accessible for years to come.

And now, dear reader, are Dr Tim Bates’ ever so slightly squished sandwiches. These sandwiches were in no way part of the 2 weeks lab. work experience, but more an amusing (to us) photo opportunity as a result of their being left in his rucksack in close proximity to some research text books: