It's the weekend again!

It's been a week since I last blogged. Seems as though an eternity! This week past pretty quickly though, 'cos of the previous long weekend. Therefore I only go back to the lab on tuesday.. and now is the wee morning of Saturday!! Now, what did I do in this week?? Hmm... pretty much nothing I think.. let's see,...

Went back on Tuesday, but since it's a lab meeting day, the whole afternoon's spent on the meeting.. so no work done. Wedesday, what did I do?? I think pretty much nothing as well. Spent the day in the lab, surfing ard the net. Now thursday, went there pretty early, ard 9+ in the morning, thinking that Dom will be teaching us how to make the media for culturing M.burtonii, but didn't go through with it 'cos Huifen was late I think. Again, spent the day stoning away. So finally, friday, friday the 13th, I manage to see some action. Like I said, I only 'see' action, didn't actually do it! haha.. 'cos the media that I need to make is the MFM media, while Dom was showing us another type of media. Nonetheless, it's good to learn how the media is made, and get acquitanted to the equipments etc.

Anyway, back then, I had contemplated on running a TUG-PAGE (essentially urea gradient gel) to see if my protein lysate is in its native state or not. But then, Davide was advising against it, with valid reasons of cos. Foremost, TUG-PAGE is normally used to analyse a single protein, and it need like 20ug of protein. Imagine now I'm using lysate, I will actually need to load in a lot more lysate to view it at the end. Secondly, he asked me to trust the sonication protocol that it will generate proteins in the denature state. He cont'd saying that if the sonicaiton protocol is doubtful in generating non-denatured proteins, then years of hard work by others in the scientific commuinty that uses sonication will go into the drain! Well, this is quite true as well. I mean, I checked some references, they used sonication to get their protein lysate and use it for gel shift assay as well.. so, am I just being paranoid!!?? Then again, I also found a good article that shows that sonication can increase the beta-sheets level within protein. Argh.. headache..

In addition, using TUG-PAGE to look at the nativity state in a heterogenous protein lysate is novel! How do I even begin to interpret the data to determine how many percent is in its native state? So much effort, and yet so much uncertainty, is it worth the effort? But, my primers ain't arrived yet, and I can't do work as well. Use this opportunity to try it out and see how it goes?? hmm.. questions after questions.. Are there any easier options?? Or just a leap of faith?! Any advise??

Everytime I think abt work, headache.. anyway, spent alot of time online watching this US drama called 'Heroes', when I come back home..haha.. it's a very interesting show, and dare I say, even better than 'Lost'! It's a bit similar to 'X-men', but much better. Haha.. I have attached a fan-made trailer here, so enjoy!



Anyway, I tried cooking the braised chicken wings again.. (my second attempt), and this time, it's much better, much more delicious! Just that I added abit too much olive oil! haha.. but overall, it's very nice.. Yum yum..


My second attempt in cooking the braised chicken wings,.. looks more professional now..haha

The product of my cooking...

Well, bought banana cake as well.. yummy. However, i find cakes esp. chocolates ones in Sydney is very sweet!! Too sweet for my liking.

Other dinner menus... Fried seafood eggplant...

Fried rice..

And, Calamari!! My favourite.. yum yum..