The Beauty of Antibodies

This week I was finally able to perform and experiment! I got to be in the process of antibody staining. I learned everything from beginning to end on what an antibody stain is, how it works, and why they are important. We were looking at muscle fibers in the jerboa foot in search for two proteins, MF20 (myosin) and WGA (Wheat Germ Agglutinin). The antibodies themselves were not able to detect the proteins, which meant that we had to include a secondary antibody that would bind to the first, making the signal stronger and able to locate. I was able to follow a protocol and try to understand it as well as make the liquids that would activate the antibodies. Beforehand, the muscle was put on slides and I started my experiment there. Mai, my mentor, helped me step by step in figuring out what to do in order to successfully perform the experiment. I really enjoyed performing the experiment and being able to be more interactive with non-hazardous materials. The interesting thing I noticed was the amount of time we spent waiting for the chemicals to process rather than conducting something. Everytime we moved on to the next step, we had to first wash the slides three times in BPA and Triton for ten minutes each. This was to break the weaker binding of the antibodies from surrounding materials found in the cell. Previously, I had heard that projects take years to perform and perfect. I knew that research took time, but I didn’t fully understand why until now. This experiment was one of the more simple experiments that is conducted and it took a couple days. Along with the waiting aspect of research, there is also an aspect of things going wrong. Luckily, Mai had done this experiment beforehand so she knew it would work, but if you were to ask a brand new question, you would not be so lucky.

This definitely made me think about becoming a more patient person. I believe that I am already semi-patient, but from seeing these people experiment over and over and not get too frustrated to the point of defeat, it is definitely something I would like to work on myself. When one thing doesn’t work they try to figure out why it does not work and go about the issue a different way next time. I would like to take back into my own life, even the slightest amount of dedication and drive they have.