The End of Summer

Last week, I finished my work at Princeton. Although it is not the ending of our project, the progress we made this summer is really important for the whole project.

The main part of our improvement includes two parts: thylakoid extraction and photosynthesis efficiency testing.

For the first part, the main procedures include: 1. using a lab blender to blend the mixture of alginate leaf pieces with grinding buffer; 2. putting the solution into the centrifuge for the pellet; 3. putting the pellet into the washing buffer and do the resuspension; 4. go through few more times of centrifuge to get the concentrated thylakoid.

For the testing, the main procedures include: 1. adding 0.10 mL of the suspension to 10 mL of 80% acetone in a test tube; 2. inverting the solution several times and then filtered through a Whatman filter paper into a large cuvette using a 50 mL glass funnel; 3. measuring the absorbance of the green solution using 80% acetone to zero the spectrophotometer. The concentration of chlorophyll in the original sample is calculated using the relative equation. 

We tried multiple methods to see which works the best. There was failure sometimes, but we got through it and kept on moving forward. This project includes a lot of brainstorming and testing. Different from my last project, I have experienced more about the beginning part of a science project, including proposal writing, idea design and other preparation.

Since the project is still in progress, I will go back to Princeton to continue my lab experience during the school year. It is the consistency that makes a difference.