from the lab bench

Chemistry, 2006 by Thomas Allen 

Yesterday (Tuesday, January 25, 2011) I spent a cool three hours getting acclimated to the lab I will be working in, hopefully, until I graduate. I observed and at one point assisted in performing a lactate assay with another student lab assistant. To phrase this as clearly as possible, a lactate assay is a test demonstrating one kind of biochemical pathway.  It involves the enzyme lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) which catalyzes lactate, the chemical compound in question, into pyruvate, another biologically important molecule. All of this stuff matters in processes like lactic acid fermentation, which occur when we metabolize or pump some iron. Whenever you 'feel the burn' you're actually feeling the build up of lactic acid in your muscles.

Spectrometer 20

Brown and clear bottles, some big and others small, were pulled from a fridge you neglect to store your lunch in because it's stocked with chemicals. I watched my new colleague pipette test tubes with the necessary requirements (water, buffer, LDH, etc) that allow the chemical reaction to take place. Twelve test tubes were set up with five different concentrations of lactate as well as one control. For accuracy, each concentration was allocated to two test tubes.The tubes were placed in a room temperature bath for thirty minutes and an ice bath immediately after the 30 was up. Putting the tubes into an ice bath halts the reaction. Afterward all samples were read using a Spec 20. A Spec or Spectrometer 20 is a piece of equipment that measures the amount of light absorbed by a solution (our dial was set to absorption not transmission which is the amount of light that passes through). Lastly, we attempted to construct a standard curve plotting our data, which is still in progress. Is it just me or is Excel 2010 newly confusing?

One of the better parts of this experience, thanks to funding, is not having to use wholly inaccurate rubber-bulb-big-glass-stick pipettes. Yay!! I know I will be running more assays because the whole point is to refine my laboratory techniques.