First Rotation!

I got my first lab rotation set up today! Sweet relief. I was getting kind of nervous there because technically all of us are supposed to start our rotations by next Tuesday. So yeah, it got cut pretty close, but I am officially rotating in Dr. Bogdanove's lab. I have meetings scheduled with two other professors, so hopefully I'll have all three rotations set soon.
Anyway, Dr. Bogdanove works on plant pathology, specifically pathogens of rice. The bacteria make these proteins called TAL effectors. When the bacteria infect a plant, they secrete the TAL effectors which go into the plant nucleus, bind specific DNA promoters, and activate transcription of those genes. Usually the genes that are transcribed help the bacteria infect the plant cells better in some way, but some plants have evolved some resistance mechanisms. The interesting part is the TAL effectors, because they're specific and they can be engineered to recognize pretty much any DNA sequence. There are several projects going on, but I picked to work on the one that requires the most plant pathology, and therefore I know the least about. I figured that I might as well learn a bunch of stuff right away rather than stay in my comfort zone with basic molecular biology. So I'm going to be taking TAL effectors from one type of this bacteria, putting them into another type of the bacteria, and then infecting the plants to see if the different TAL effectors change how the bacteria infect the plant. I'll be able to explain it better once I'm doing it, I'm sure. But I'm really looking forward to starting!