New Semester

Hello:

First, I’m sorry for publishing late this blog but I had some time and schedule with the laboratory’s team but I finally resolve it.

For this semester, I will be doing to things. First, I will continue on the work of the last semester, that is the sinthesis of the quantum dots with different solvents bcause we want to change the Absorbance wavelenght to the visible light spectrum. We think that if we use different solvents to change the size of the CdS it will change the absorbance wavelenght.

The ohter thing I’m going to do is to make thin film of the CdS. This consists of a substrate were the CdS will adhere to it. This will be used as a sensor to detect the quantum dots in a person’s body. This is not defined very well because right now we’re looking for easy and simpke ways of doing it.

When we got this experiment more develop I’ll make sure to tell you all about it.

JaimeVelez

End of Second Semester

Throughout this semester we’ve been trying to make our nanoparticles a lot smaller than we actually got them. After hard work, a lot of research and probably hundreds of experiments we actually got them smaller.  Before, we got the particles on the 50nm-60nm scale but we actually needed them to be in a range of 1-10nm in order to work with the protein Troponin. After different experiments we got the particles to be in 2nm, which is a pretty good size. We know the size of the nanoparticles by using the Scanning tunneling microscope (STM)  which is a powerful technique for viewing surfaces at the atomic level. The advantage of this microscope is that it can probe the density of the sample. It can also measure the surface of a sample even if it is 0.1nm of length. The STM did really help us to find the size of our particles.

Hopefully, in the next semester we’ll use the protein we want to see if it can react with our nanoparticles. If this can be done successfully our mission in the project will be accomplished.

Progress made until now

Hey,

We’re now entering mid-semester and there had been some progressed in my research. On the last blog, I said we had some problems on the experiments because the products we get  weren’t just right. So after investigating what went wrong, we found out that the solvent was impured and that’s why we were getting a different reaction. Once we have fixed that problem, the products we got were the right ones.

Now we’re trying on different types of solvents to add to the original to see if we get the nanoparticles smaller. sofar we’ve tried with three solvents but we haven’t got any success. If I had to scale the achievment so far in a scale from 1-5, I would probably scale it a 3 because we could find the problem that was preventing us to get the right products but we still can’t find the right solvent to make the particles smaller.

I’ll keep you informed of what happen next.

Take care.

New Techniques learned in the lab

Hello everyone

It’s been almost a month and a half working on my research. I would say that the technique that I had to learned (by force) is trial and error and to be very very patient. I say all of this because be dicovered last week that there is someone wrong with the reactant being used because they are not producing the same product they did last semester. So it means that all we’ve done this semester probably was in vane. So now we’re just trying to make the same products we did last semester that we know exactly how to do it and what are the products. But all trials we’ve done they always react in a different way. So we are just trying to figure out wich reactants are damaged.

If i had to scale the achievement in this semester from 1-5, i sadly would have to say  maybe a 2 because of what i just said.

I’ll make sure to keep you informed of what happend during this months.

Take Care

Jaime Velez

A New Semester, A New Experience, right?

Hey it’s me again.

A whole new semester has come so you would think I should be doing a whole new kind of research under my investigation. Well I have bad news, well at least until mid-September. While we were hoping to do the quantum dots (QD) by the end of the last semester, after some analysis made by one of the graduate student, we discover that the particles created weren’t quantum dots, they were nano-particles. The difference between them is the size. Quantum dots are 1-10nm while nano-particles are from 1-100nm. The sizes of what we did were 20-50nm. So this semester hopefully by mid-September is to reduce their sizes by using different types of solvents. After that we are going to put this QD into the protein that we are focused on. If it goes all well, we might use others organic compounds like sugars.

That is in general what we are planning to do this semester but if there is an changes I promise to tell you.

take care.

End of first semester

Hey

I’m writing this blog to say that this semester’s investigation is almost finished. I’ve got to say that this semester I really learned a lot of thing and I wouldn’t change this experiences for anything. I’ve learned research techniques that I would’ve never imagined it existed. I think that the best thing that I learned was teamwork. Teamwork is the base to do a research because no man is an island. To have teamwork i had to create a feeling of trust and comfort around my group.

One of the obstacle that I had to overcome probably was the distribution of my time. I had to make time to my studies but also to my research so I’d say that was at first a little hard to find a balance between both. After a while a manage to get organized and manage my time.

For the next semesters I expect to continue the labor I’ve been doing and hopefully to do other kind of work.

Different Bio-blogs that I’ve visited

I have the chance to visit three different Bio-blogs and see what are they doing and the experience they’re having. I learned that there is a lot of different application to science, things that I couldn’t even imagine such as the Computer Simulations of Biomolecular Systems, thats the use of different softwares to see how molecules reacts in different environment. The thing that I learned by visiting the others blogs is that there is a whole world of possibilities that you can do a research about and you just have to look carefully and ask yourself how can you use the things around you to make them work in favor of you and others.

Techniques learned in the lab

Hi,

This is my third month that I’ve been working on my investigation and thougout it I have learned many techniques that are use in laboratories. I think that one of the most important is the communication between your mentor, your teammates and you. Without communication there is nothing that you can do because you won’t know what or how to do it. Another thing that communication can help you with is to the level of comfort. Sometimes you don’t feel comfortable of what your doing or how you do it. If you have a nice communication level with your teammates you can talk to them and maybe find a solution to it.

Since a scientific investigation is a really serious thing, another techniques that is really important is to have a well made lab notebook. In the investigation I have to be measuring time, mass, molarity, etc. and if I don’t keep an organized notebook and make note of everything, all the work that I did probably wouldn’t count because there is no way to anyone to redo my job and proved that what I said is true.

There are others techniques that I’ve learned but I’m afraid that I can’t tell you because my mentor is trying the make a patent and they prohibited me to say anything about it. So sorry.

Biominds

Hello

It’s me, Jaime Jose Velez Fores again, and I’m writing again to give all of you more information about my investigation. Since I know that most people, including myself, don’t like to read o listen to something that’s made on a very hard, scientific language, I thought that I should explain my investigation in simple words.

Basically, I’m using nano-particles to help reduce the heart attack rate in people. Heart attack are one of the most causes of death in people. My mentor and his team are trying to use particles called quantum dots to help reduced the heart attack. It’s thought that there is a protein that is released in about six hours before an heart attack. It is also known that the protein has calcium receptors and we are trying to use that in our advantage. We want to dissolve the quantum dots in calcium solution (i.e. calcium oxide) and introduce them into the patients so that when the protein is release that quantum dots can detect the protein and warn the patient so he can be saved from the heart attack.

I got to admit that this investigations was nothing like I expected. I really thought it was going to be a boring three hours two times a week being stuck in a laboratory all alone doing the thing others didn’t wanted to do but I was completely wrong. I’ve really learn a lot in this month in my investigation. I’ve learn different instruments and methods uses to measure different things. But I think that the most important thing I’ve learn is to work as a group and to work in a group. Learning to work in a group is something that it’s really important because on every aspect of your life your going to work in a group, even in your family you’re part of a group. this investigation has really helped be to developed more as a group and to respect other decisions and points of view.

Well, I think that’s all for this time,

take care

Jaime Jose Velez Fores

Bio-Minds investigation

Hi:

My name is Jaime Jose Velez Fores and I’m currently in the Bio-Minds Investigation. I’m a student of the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus, in the Industrial Biotechnology Department. I’m actually at my first year of college. For those who doesn’t know, Bio-Minds (Biotechnology Mentorship Initiative to Develop Scientists Program) is a program sponsored by Amgen to promote undergraduate research in the areas of science and engineering that support the advancement of biotechnology. This is the first year of this program and we’re currently 100 students of 5 campus of the University of Puerto Rico.

I’m currently working with Dr. Miguel Castro. He’s from the Chemistry Department at the Mayaguez Campus.  He’s research it’s basically based on the used on nanoparticles. He’s working on a protein that is released in about 6 hours before a heart attack. He and his team wants to use some nanoparticles called quantum dots in order to detect the protein and prevent the heart attack

If you didn’t get it fast don’t worry, i didn’t either. But I promised i will be posting more often to get all of you informed about the investigation.