Week 15

Today we cleaned the beakers- all six- in preparation for a new batch of plates on Tuesday. We discussed how to improve the B. Coagulans situation and analyzed our plates for the new B. coagulans broth, which came out clean this time. We decided to focus solely on the new B. coagulans to gather as much data as possible in the little time we have left.

On Tuesday we went through the typical process, creating the dilutions and streaking the plates. We used the B. coagulans solution today, and when we finished we wrapped up the plates in Parafilm, washed the beakers, and sterilized one beaker in the remaining time. 

Today did not start well, as one of our beakers fell and broke, so we spent a good minute cleaning that up. We sterilized the rest of the beakers today, and additionally, we made two new B. coagulans solutions and put them in the incubator for use on Monday of the following week. Lastly, we redid our bench paper so it remained relatively sterile.

Today Ian showed up during AoT to streak all plates and make dilutions, so during class time most of the work was already done. This allowed all the beakers to be cleaned and fixed up during this class period as well. Furthermore, we finished up the last B. coagulans bottle and placed it in the incubator. This allowed us to have a bit of time to plan for the following week.

Today we analyzed our B. coagulans from Thursday, which, to our surprise, had the first zones of inhibition of all our data thus far. This was a huge moment, as up until this point our data showed only zeroes. We also checked up on the B. coagulans growing in the nutrient broth. Finally, we blogged and concluded the day with a plan to do two sets of plates on Monday the following week.