Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Week 9

Last week and probably final post for the summer.  Finished that last trial and ran the samples 4 times, averaging.  Then ran the buffer and spin 8 again another 4 times and averaged them in.  Took standard deviation of the data points for my error.  Unfortunately the phosphorus count was very low, and the trend was not defined in the sodium.  But error bars were a little smaller and we were on the right track.

Next, I only had enough nucleosomes for 3 more samples.  So I made the second, third, and fifth sample a last time, spun in the cold room, ran the NCP, buffer, spin 8 and spin 7 many times and averaged them together.  This time the phosphorus count came out well, the trend was defined, and the error bars much MUCH smaller.  Certainly a good place to end for the summer.  Hopefully after Andresen makes more nucleosomes, I can run again in the fall and perfect the experiment, getting reproducible data again and again.  For now I can work on a poster for Celebration next spring, and in the future (maybe?) help get the data published?