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.
