During this month many important events have occurred that have changed the way I analyze certain situations and have helped me to mature as a student and as a human being. My experiences in the laboratory have been marvelous and extraordinary. Beside this fact, I have learned much about the goals of my investigation and how everything works because whenever I am not in the laboratory, I take advantage of my time and look up information about what I am working on or techniques that I am utilizing within the lab.

I have learned many new things in the laboratory, such as: the hanging drop technique, preparing the buffer necessary for the sulf complex, preparing a myoglobin solution, and others. Among the difficulties that I have come to face throughout this experience, one may be that since everyone in the laboratory has to work as a team, we have to coordinate and find times when everyone will be available to gather together and work. This month has been a very difficult one since the investigative team has had to deal with atmospheric and economic problems, as well as problems between the employees and the students within the university. Even though many unexpected and troublesome occurrences have happened, we have worked arduously and I have learned a lot, since even though it is difficult, it is not impossible because we all have great communication and we are able to complete all the objectives that come with our tasks in the laboratories.

My investigative partner, a graduate student named Darya Marchany, teaches me everything she can about the objectives that we need to complete every time we gather together. As mentioned before, among the many things that I have learned, there is preparing a buffer of H2S with a Ph count of 6.5; preparing a solution of Myoglobin and realizing the hanging drop technique. I was able to prepare the H2S buffer without any difficulty because of the fact that it had a very simple procedure. The important thing was that I had to make sure that the calculations were correct and that I made sure to correctly weight the calculated amount of ingredients. On the other hand, the procedure used to prepare the Myoglobin solution was not so simple because of the fact that it had some very critical points in the procedure where I had to be extra careful such as weighing the Myoglobin. This part is crucial because I had to obtain experimentally the correct amount and this is very hard because of the fact that the Myoglobin available in the laboratory is very soft, light-weight, and once it comes in contact with water it changes its appearance and becomes harder to dissolve. After I obtain the Myoglobin solution the next step in procedure is determining the concentration that I have. This concentration can be obtained when the absorbance factor is closest to 1 and I use the Beer equation: A=Ebc, where A is absorbance, E is the molar absorbtivity constant, b is the width of the cell, and c is the concentration.

In the time I have spent doing my investigations, I have reaffirmed my love for sciences and my goal in developing myself as a professional within this field. I wish to thank the BioMinds program for the incredible opportunity that they have given me. They have allowed me to define myself and understand that I was born for this. I hope that all of the problems that P.R and the university are now facing are resolved so that I may return to the laboratory and continue my regular contributions in it.

This is me!

My name is Beatriz Andújar Rosa. I am dedicated, outspoken and optimistic. I love to study and do the best I can to achieve all of my goals. At this moment I am coursing my second year of Industrial Biotechnology in the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus. My future plans involve finishing my bachelors’ degree in Industrial Biotechnology in order to later enter medicine school and become the greatest doctor in the world! I am sure that the Bio-MINDS program will provide me with many tools that are very important and extremely necessary for my future. In this program I will be allowed to take on more responsibility and obtain knowledge in different fields such as chemistry and biology. I will also improve my techniques in the laboratory and group team-work.

I decided to work with the doctor Juan Lopez Garriga because of the fact that his work was focused on something very closely related to the field of medicine. In the labs that belong to doctor Garriga, they are studying many aspects of hemoglobin and they specifically focus on the formation of sulfhemoglobin. Basically he hopes to investigate all of the factors that are necessary in order for it to form in hopes of, among other things, trying to prevent people from dying from the sickness that is caused by this type of hemoglobin. Among the many different investigations that currently underway, I will be working with the crystallization of the sulf complex. This investigation is very important because if we are able to successfully crystallize the sulf complex, we will be able to perform a deeper investigation into such a poorly understood complex.

Up until now, my experience in the laboratory has been very satisfactory because of the fact that I have learned a lot and I’m on good terms with everyone in the lab. I have already attended various laboratory reunions, including a small conference that helped me to gain a better understanding of what goes on in the different laboratories and what is expected of each of us. I also learned new laboratory techniques and was able to reinforce the knowledge that I had gained from my earlier semester of class. Among the many laboratory techniques that I am recently learning, different crystal growth techniques can be found.

The goals that me and my mentor have set for this semester include learning as much as we can every day and to keep working as much as possible in order to decipher the secrets of sulfhemoglobin. In order to gain a better understanding of sulfhemoglobin, please access the link titled A Study of Sulfhemoglobin.

Hello, my name is Beatriz Andujar Rosa. Welcome to my blog.