Goals For The Second Semester

Sadly I didn’t have the opportunity to participate on a of summer research program; I had other priorities. Hopefully, I’m planning on do it so next summer. Basically what we have done so far this first month is establishing the goals for the semester. From what I can tell this semester is going to be tougher than last, due to the many goals our mentor want us (Sully an me) to accomplish.

Unfortunately, most of the plantlets on the clinostat died, with a very few remaining alive, which is not that bad at all. At least we manage to overcome almost at perfection our main adversary, CONTAMINATION. The few plantlets that survive showed something peculiar, which was that they all had very little contact with the matrix solution. It is for this reason that we are going to perform once again but this time incorporating new ingredients such as sugars and other vitamins, and using less volume of the matrix solution.

On of the projects we had last semester was to design an air bioreactor, whose purpose I’m not allowed to tell yet (rules are the rules). This semester our mentor wants us to focus more on putting the bioreactor to work. Another project we have in mind is work on the acclimatization (root formation) of the plantlets, and compare in vivo observations with the in vitro ones. Our mentor also told us that this semester he’s going to be a little stricter on the written paper, so I need to improve my writing skills in order not disappoint him. Aside from this he wants us to start preparing (separately of course) a poster.

For what has been said, it is clearly seen that our goals for this semester relates in a great manner with our work done last semester. There’s no doubt that this semester is going to be challenging, but fortunately my perspective remains positive.

~ by jctec on August 25, 2008.