Week 9:

This week the team focused on redoing our experiment to try and obtain a better set of data than our first set of experimental trials. We believe that multiple aspects of our original approach were flawed such as the nanodrop device we used, which was not designed to measure fluorescence, and the fact that our light-sensitive fluorescent protein was not covered. In this second attempt of experimental trials we repeated the same procedure as in week 7, where the Alginate and calcium chloride solutions were made, the reagents were mixed with them, and the hydrogel was produced, except that this time we ensured that outside light would not effect our results. Each of the test tubes that contained the Albumin Fluroescein Protein was covered in aluminum foil to ensure that any light was reflected away from the sample. With the help of our lead professor Dr. Hao Cheng, we were able to appropriately measure the fluorescence values of our hydrogel samples taken from the different hydrogels. This week we were able to complete four different hydrogel trials, but synthesizing four hydrogels at the same time with varying concentrations of our cytidine dependent variable (0 mg, 5 mg, 7 mg, 13 mg). The resulting values for fluorescence did confirm our earlier hypothesis that protein concentration would increase as time went on and can be seen below.

Here you can see how our expert team prepared each of the hydrogels for this final experimental trial in our state of the art lab