Glowing Green Jellyfish?
Thanksgiving break was much too short. Luckily, there are only 2 weeks left of normal classes…followed by exam week. I guess that’s lucky?
Anyway, tonight I have to finish up a lab notebook for my ISAT 305 class. It is the introductory lab course for the biotech sector, and you can take it with or without the accompanying biotech course. I’ve already taken a bunch of biology, so I opted out of the lecture.
The course so far has been focused on creating a recombinant plasmid, that’s right, genetic engineering. Mad scientist stuff. The lab is very similar to one I did in genetics (Bio 224, I think), it involves taking a gene that codes for a green fluorescent protein (GFP) and sticking it in bacterial DNA. The protein is originally found in jellyfish (complements nasa.gov), and makes them glow. When you put a plasmid (bacterial DNA that is circular) containing the gene into bacteria, they glow too!
I’m fuzzy on the details, but if you rent The Hulk from a few years ago GFP is mentioned in the opening credits. I know, it wasn’t the best movie. But you see that the crazy pre-Hulk scientist was experimenting with the GFP, perhaps explaining why the Hulk is green? Maybe ISAT students should get into the movie making business too.
In the mean time, I’m going to finish my lab write-ups. Feel free to email me anytime with questions, good luck getting through this last part of the semester!