Lab Rotation #2

I started my second lab rotation this week. I'm working in Dr. Zhang's lab. He works on Campylobacter jejuni, an intestinal pathogen. It's the most common cause of food poisoning. The particular strain they are working on is causing sheep to have spontaneous abortions, so it's a concern in animal husbandry. My project is to generate knockout mutants in two genes, CJSA-1098 and CJSA-1084. They are both putative virulence genes and the lab is interested in how those genes are affecting the virulence of this particular strain. I'm looking forward to this because I've never made bacterial knockout mutants before. The lab itself is really nice and very roomy, even though it's in the basement of Vet Med. Everyone seems really nice, and the grad student I'm working with is really cool. It's nice to be working with another person really closely, because that way we can work with each other and I have to worry less about what's going on in lab all the time. It's less pressure. I just started this week, so I haven't done a lot yet. We have to construct the suicide vectors first in E. coli and then we transform the Campy. with them. So I've designed some primers and miniprepped some bacteria so far. The primers should be in tomorrow morning so I'll have more to do in the afternoon. I'm enjoying being back in the lab.