Here we go again!

My next few weeks...

may 9th  -  June 3rd (4 weeks)
9-5 weekdays in the lab, probably involves being very confused and not know what to do, failing experiments and ultimately getting nothing done and no conclusive results

June 3rd - June 16th (<2 weeks)
Frantic frantic dissertation writing, 2 weeks to consolidate all my results, make up some bullshit about why the experiment didnt work and what should have happened. Word limit is 8000 words, last time I did a 3000 word essay it took me about 5 weeks... So... yeah... 2 weeks for 8k words is going to be fucking ass.

>June 16th
Freedom...?

~June 25th
Possibly holiday to Alicante (spain) for a few days with the housemates

July 19th
Graduation

July 23rd - July 30th
1 Week holiday with family to Mallorca

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Went home for a long weekend (had monday off because lab supervisor is too busy to help us get started) , Played lots of MVC3, played through Portal 2 Co-op (Which is WAY more challenging than the singleplayer), played 'Vanquish' which ive deduced is essentially a fun version of gears of war with weapons which actually feel like they do something, I also got Outland (XBLA) - the game which is essentially touted as Ikaruga the platformer, and its pretty much exactly that, reminds me a little of metroid as well with the whole character skill progression stuff, its pretty good but maybe a little linear, havent finished it yet.

And now I guess I need to figure out exactly what my lab project is / requires...

Oh also, on the 360 situation, have decided I should probably wait until I finish my dissertation to get one, I got a little too caught up in 'exam freedom', and forgot that after exam freedom essentially comes 'Lab project Hell'

~~~~~~

TITLE OF PROJECT: Cell-specific expression of small-secreted peptide ligands in plant reproductive tissues

BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT

We have identified a group of peptide ligands in Arabidopsis, and mutations on these genes show pleiotropic developmental defects. These mutants carry T-DNA insertions in these peptides, which are thought to regulate cell-cell communication between neighboring cells.

AIMS OF THIS PROJECT

(i) In order to investigate how development is abnormally regulated, the student will conduct a detailed phenotypic analysis of these mutants using microscopy.

(ii) In order to get clues to the mechanism, by which this mutation affects their function, the student will engineer synthetic genes to assess their function in plant development.

METHODS TO BE USED

Plants will be grown under long-day conditions in a control environment. Tissues will be harvested for analysis by confocal microscopy. mRNA will be extracted, transcribed into cDNA then used as template to generate synthetic genes. These synthetic genes will be cloned in a binary vector for Agrobacterium transformation.